Afghanistan and the Great Powers in Regional Geopolitics, Economics and Security

Abstract

Afghanistan occupies a point of convergence of great power interests in a new Great Game across a region dealing with such issues as terrorist and criminal activity, narcotics trafficking and porous borders. The great powers have also in recent years importantly converged in their trying to promote an Afghan peace process. A promising future for Afghanistan depends as well on a better-integrated region economically and substantial progress toward political reconciliation among the neighboring states. Afghanistan occupies a place in a region where rivalries play out usually to its detriment. At present, the security-driven agendas of its neighbors, particularly the enmity between India and Pakistan, strongly encumber the trans-regional movement of goods and services on which Afghanistan depends so heavily. In turn, the armed struggle in Afghanistan challenges the well being of the region. The country’s long history of instability and armed conflict threatens the region’s ability to realize its potentials for economic growth through economic connectivity and regional political cooperation. The appropriate means for resolving the Afghan conflict and regional disagreements is generally thought to be the exercise of diplomacy. Yet spoilers, domestic and foreign, have demonstrated their ability to impede negotiations with which they feel uncomfortable. Russia, China and the US, with their perceived stakes in the region and in pursuit of their own strategic objectives, have at times exacerbated the differences among the region’s states. But these powers are also in a position to encourage integration and thus further regional peace and stability. In Afghanistan, the future lies ultimately with the Afghans themselves, but the actions of the regional powers and the international community, most of all the great powers, figure prominently in the country’s economic survival and hopes for security.