INTRODUCTION

On August 15, 2021, the Taliban entered Kabul, taking over Afghanistan at a speed that surprised many Afghans and Americans. The final withdrawal of the US military and diplomats, as well as the operation to evacuate American citizens, ended on August 30, 2021. The US withdrawal from the country was predetermined by the February 2020 agreement between the United States and the Taliban.

The Taliban have declared Afghanistan a “free country” and say they want good relations with the United States. Many doubt the accuracy of this statement, as they recall the previous rule of the Taliban in the country from 1996 to 2001. The situation in Afghanistan remains tense and causes serious concern. The country is run by a government of 33 mullahs, many of whom are under UN sanctions and wanted for terrorist activities.

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken warned [1] that Afghanistan would become a “rogue state” unless a peace agreement was achieved between the government and the Taliban. This may be true for the United States, but Afghanistan is not where the map ends for Russia and the Central Asian states. They cannot do without operational interaction with the de facto government of the Taliban movement. It is not a question of the political recognition of the new leadership of Afghanistan; each country may have its own urgent goals in the current relations with the Taliban. Russia proceeds from the fact that what happened is a reality.

The pragmatism of the Russian position does not please Washington, which believes that the Kremlin is seeking to increase its influence both inside and around Afghanistan. Many American experts speak about it. For example, Foreign Affairs magazine [2] claims that Russia and China, after the Americans left, are trying to undermine any remaining leverage that the United States could use to build a new Afghanistan. At the same time, it omits that the reasons for such a rapid collapse of the state built by the Americans are completely different.

Critical shortcomings in the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces and self-serving governance focused on corruption and politicking rather than the country’s core interests have been defining characteristics of Afghanistan during the two decades of foreign military presence in the country.

The rise to power of the Taliban and the collapse of the former Afghan government raise important questions about the present and future security of neighboring countries and regional stability in general.

THE US WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN CONFLICTS WITH BIDEN’S COMPETENCE NARRATIVE

In the structural explanations of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, politicians and experts point out many reasons, but none of them is connected with the arrival of President J. Biden to the White House. The prevailing view is that the troop withdrawal is the result of a bipartisan consensus in the United States. The leaders of both political parties decided it was time to leave Afghanistan, even after losing a 20-year war with the Taliban.

In giving the order to withdraw troops, J. Biden acted within the framework of the policy of his predecessor. It was President D. Trump who decided to negotiate with the Taliban. He gave political recognition to the armed group by negotiating directly with its leadership, completely pushing the Afghan government aside. His administration signed a peace agreement with the Taliban in February 2020 [3], in accordance with which the United States committed to a phased withdrawal of all US troops and NATO units from Afghanistan within 14 months from the date of signing on certain conditions. In turn, the Taliban pledged not to allow any group or individual to use Afghan territory to threaten the US and its allies. The Taliban also promised to cut ties with terrorist organizations, including al-Qaeda, which carried out the attack on September 11, 2001, while under the auspices of the Taliban.

The February pact also provided, in particular, for the exchange of prisoners, the start of intra-Afghan negotiations, and the lifting of sanctions. It was about the departure of the Americans and the return of the Taliban to power, and not about the establishment of peace.

The American leadership hastened to wishful thinking. It was a big mistake to believe that the Taliban could be interested in a lasting peace.

The agreement reached in Doha was largely oriented towards the Taliban movement, undermined the position of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, and contributed to the release of 5000 Taliban prisoners without concessions from their side. It is fundamentally important that the Afghan government was not a party to the February agreement and did not give its consent to the implementation of its terms. At the same time, the behavior of the Taliban remained contrary to their obligations under the February agreement.

The United States Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, drew the attention of the Trump administration to the fact that the Taliban continue to consider the government in Kabul the result of military occupation and is not ready to negotiate with it [4]. In fact, the peace process to end the civil war after the agreement with the Taliban was not launched. The Taliban have made no secret of their plans to abolish the country’s current constitution, remove the existing government, and gain key influence in the next one.

The United States has come to a consensus that the war in Afghanistan cannot have a military solution. The Taliban, on the contrary, benefited from the war and its continuation in order to return to the leadership of Afghanistan. Nevertheless, the Biden administration fulfilled the US agreement with the Taliban. Perhaps the only point of contention that now remains is whether the Trump administration, which had committed itself to withdrawing from Afghanistan, could have provided more competent management of the retreat than J. Biden.

Indeed, the “orderly exit” promised by the 46th president has turned into chaos. In mid-July, he assured that the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan would not be a hasty rout. His administration believed that the prospect of the Taliban taking over the entire country was very unlikely. Today it is obvious that the American leadership underestimated the speed with which the Afghan structures would collapse and the country would again be under the control of the Taliban.

This was a mistake that the Biden administration was warned about. For example, David Petraeus, former director of the CIA and former commander of US forces in Afghanistan, speaking at the Aspen Institute on the eve of the withdrawal, defended his opinion that the United States, before the final withdrawal, certainly had a lot to do to help Afghanistan stabilize the security situation [5]. To do this, the general proposed to reconsider the political decision on the conditions for withdrawing from Afghanistan: to ensure reconnaissance and monitoring of the situation in the country in order to obtain the information necessary for the combat use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and the implementation of direct air support.

President Biden’s [6] speech after the withdrawal of US troops from Kabul was intended to close a painful chapter in history of the United States. In it, he attributed the fiasco in Afghanistan to the misguided desire of the American leadership for “state building” in a country that was not ready for it. J. Biden noted that the focus of the United States should have been the fight against terrorism, and not state building. This concise explanation seemed to resonate with his audience. In the public discourse of influential American media, Biden’s explanation also did not raise significant objections.

However, the problem in Afghanistan does not appear to be that the United States had embarked on a nation-building campaign. If only that were the case. In fact, there was no visible campaign, but instead there was a scattered effort of the entire coalition and various US government departments and agencies. The lack of clear goals, the inability to use leverage to advance political reforms, and over-reliance on military efforts created conditions that allowed the Taliban not only to maintain their influence, but also to strengthen the militant potential of the movement significantly.

It seems that the prospect of achieving such an understanding in the United States seems far off. Weeks of congressional hearings on the war failed to produce such a consensus. Instead of making a determined effort to identify root causes, the Department of Defense and the State Department tried to avoid blame. And only Ryan Crocker, who served as the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait, and Lebanon, stated in his speech [7] that President J. Biden was responsible for the consequences of his decision to leave. According to R. Crocker, the decision to implement D. Trump’s plan to withdraw from Afghanistan was wrong. On the part of the Biden administration, this was a concession to the long-standing demand of the Taliban: they were ready to talk with the Americans, but not with the puppet regime in Kabul. As R. Crocker noted, the White House by this step delegitimized the Afghan government and its security forces, initiating a process that ended with their collapse and the return of the Taliban.

Biden’s decision to end the 20-year mission in Afghanistan led by the United States resulted in chaos and provoked a new large-scale humanitarian crisis when the Taliban took control of the country [8]. Neither the United States, nor NATO, nor any of the coalition countries have established an effective military presence or strong administration since their departure.

Assessing the first year of President Biden’s foreign policy, experts noted that his first mistake was that he was unable to revise or completely abandon the Trump administration’s erroneous agreement with the Taliban. Washington had made too many concessions to the Taliban at the expense of the Afghan government and security forces.

Biden’s second mistake is cited by many as his refusal to leave a small American counterterrorism presence in the country, supplemented by several thousand NATO troops, which would have provided the United States with leverage in peace talks with the Taliban.

Thirdly, according to experts, the Biden administration mismanaged the process, abruptly withdrawing all American troops and 16 000 contractors at once, without having a plan for the safe evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies. The President refused any discussions about the ability of the Afghan army to defend the country after the withdrawal of American military support.

Let us agree that the hasty departure and chaotic evacuation left a stain on the global image of the United States and the foreign policy track record of J. Biden. If not for his administration’s decision to continue sending humanitarian aid to the Afghan people, President Biden would have earned a failing grade.

RETURN OF THE TALIBAN TO POWER AND SECURITY ISSUES

The rapid return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan has given a strong signal to neighboring countries in the region that their security is once again under threat. For more than 20 years, the Afghan Taliban waged war against the United States and foreign forces, but now they need to transform from a handful of insurgents into a group that runs the country. Can the Taliban achieve sustainable peace?

Much depends on how the Taliban will behave in the future and how they will be able to fulfill their promises. Some factions of the Taliban are now trying to design a modified version of the group based on this new awareness of the realities of the world. However, extremist groups within the Taliban want a return to a policy similar to that pursued by the regime in the 1990s [9].

By early 2022, there was little indication that the Taliban in power could prove to be more effective and more stabilizing than the foreign-backed, mixed governments of the past 20 years. If we turn to history, we can hardly expect the appearance in Kabul of a stable government capable of controlling the whole of Afghanistan. The struggle between different ethnic and religious communities, the rivalry of leaders and clans within the victorious Pashtuns, the de facto autonomy of the country’s regions, and periodic armed clashes seem inevitable.

As for terrorist threats from Afghanistan, there are fears that their growth is quite possible [10]. At the time of the decision to finally leave the country, J. Biden argued that the threat of terrorism from Afghanistan was low and would be manageable in the foreseeable future. Many experts disagree with this assessment. In the author’s opinion, this assessment was erroneous, and with the return of the Taliban to power, the threat increases. The Taliban are deeply factionalized, and divisions within them are likely to escalate over power struggles in which the various factions of the Taliban may cooperate with terrorist forces operating from Afghanistan [11].

Taliban-backed groups include al-Qaeda and its local affiliates, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), various Central Asian jihadists, as well as anti-Indian and anti-Chinese jihadists such as the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP). There is also a significant foreign fighter force in various groups, including al-Qaeda. In addition, the Islamic State (IS) affiliate in Afghanistan, a rival to the Taliban, appears to be recovering from military casualties.

Most of these groups face restrictions, but they retain important strengths despite years of counterterrorism pressure by the United States [12]. This general landscape makes it impossible to interpret the major terrorist degradation that the J. Biden’s administration suggests.

There is another equally dangerous aspect. The defeat of the United States and the victory of the Taliban in Afghanistan have become significant milestones for global jihadism and are likely to enhance their morale and strength significantly. There are fears that ISIS, which has lost control of territories in Iraq and Syria, may return to its insurgent roots and focus on organizing terrorist attacks. Various terrorist groups gleefully celebrated the Taliban’s conquest of Kabul on chat rooms and other online platforms, promising to resume global jihad.

The Biden administration points to the anti-terrorism guarantees that the Taliban provided as part of the agreement signed in February 2020 between the United States and the Taliban. Indeed, it contains a number of detailed commitments regarding the actions the Taliban must take to prevent the use of Afghan territory by terrorist groups. But will the Taliban comply with them? So far, it is clear that the Taliban has ruled out cooperation with Washington to contain extremist groups in Afghanistan, having taken an uncompromising position on this issue at talks with US representatives in Doha in October 2021 [13].

Another argument of the Biden administration is that the Taliban have allegedly learned the lesson taught by the United States in 2001 in connection with providing asylum to Al-Qaeda and supporting terrorist groups, and that now, for fear of a new armed clash with the United States, they will not allow these groups to operate from Afghanistan. These expectations appear to be devoid of common sense. Get out of a war to menace a new one?

The traditional threat to Afghanistan associated with the ethnic conflict between the Pashtuns (the Taliban is predominantly a Pashtun movement) and Afghan Tajiks also remains. The tough stance of non-recognition of the Taliban, already formulated by the government in Dushanbe, suggests that this country may also be drawn into the conflict.

Tajikistan feels a strong connection with the Tajiks in Afghanistan, who are not much outnumbered by the Pashtuns. In such a pronounced form, this does not apply to other neighboring countries of Central Asia. Of course, the leadership of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan also cannot ignore the interests of ethnic Turkmens and Uzbeks living in Afghanistan. But their numbers are much smaller. As with other communities, previous estimates, though disputed, have suggested that Uzbeks (9%) and Turkmens (3%) make up about 12% of the Afghan population in total.

There is another important factor in Dushanbe’s relations with the Taliban. There are many Tajik militants from the Jamaat Ansarullah organization, banned by the government of Tajikistan, in the ranks of the Taliban. This grouping, founded in 2009–2010 in order to overthrow the legitimate government in Dushanbe, actually ensured the victory of the Taliban in Badakhshan and controls large territories there today [14].

One cannot exclude the possibility that the conflict between Iran and a number of Arab countries in the Middle East, primarily Saudi Arabia, could be transferred to Afghanistan, often taking the form of a Shiite–Sunni clash. The penetration of IS into Afghanistan and Pakistan is one of the manifestations of this trend at the present time, as are the recent terrorist attacks against the Shiites in Afghanistan. Not only IS, but also a number of militants associated with other Sunni groups from Central Asia and other countries are actively migrating from the Middle East to Afghanistan [15].

However, by early 2022, the Taliban controlled most of Afghanistan, and there was no organized resistance to Taliban rule. The exception is the armed struggle against Kabul, waged by the Afghan branch of ISIS, known as IS-Khorasan.

This indicates that the new Taliban government, even if desired, cannot guarantee the cessation of terrorist activities in the country, that is, the terrorist threat from Afghanistan remains.

This also applies to al-Qaeda. A significant part of its leadership continues to be based in Afghanistan, and its ties with the Taliban are still close, based on ideological similarities [16]. The Taliban cooperated with al-Qaeda, often through the Haqqani network, the leader of which Khalil Haqqani became Minister of the Interior in the government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, which was re-established after the Americans left.

There is a risk that the extremists will not stop there and will try to draw neighboring states into the orbit of their influence, including the republics of Central Asia, Russia’s allies in the CSTO. If one of them is attacked by terrorists, Moscow, based on treaty obligations, will be obliged to intervene.

For the countries of Central Asia, the first months after the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan were relatively calm. The situation on the border is under control, crowds of refugees did not flood into the region, and radical groups inspired by the successes of the Taliban, ready to overthrow local regimes, did not immediately appear inside the countries. This, however, does not mean that there are no threats from Afghanistan to the countries of Central Asia; much will depend on what course the Taliban will choose and where the Afghan crisis will turn in general.

With the Taliban having come to power, Russia has no plans to increase its military presence in Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan, and so far there are no signs that it is seeking to open new bases in other countries of Central Asia.

On the pages of even serious publications on international issues (for example, in Foreign Policy magazine), one can come across statements such that, allegedly, after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Russia and China will try to undermine any remaining leverage that Washington could use to build a new Afghanistan [2]. This is at a time when Washington has no alternative peace plan for Afghanistan.

However, the key words describing Moscow’s immediate reaction to the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021 are pragmatism, relative calm, restraint, and recognition of the reality of Taliban control over the country. The Russian embassy in Kabul expressed in advance its readiness to cooperate with the new de facto authorities. But Russia, like most other states, is in no hurry to officially the Taliban recognize, or even to remove them from its list of terrorist organizations. Moscow has conditioned these moves on the behavior of the Taliban in order to maintain a few direct, diplomatic sources of influence on the new Afghan authorities who seek international legitimacy.

As far as China is concerned, the US withdrawal makes direct sense to Beijing from a strategic perspective, as the Sino–US rivalry is likely to become the dominant theme of international politics in the coming decades. President Biden has made China a major focus of Washington’s foreign policy. His administration has been quick to demonstrate that US military power enables the United States to fulfill its global obligations. As troops withdraw from Afghanistan, they have staged the largest military exercise since the Cold War of the 1940s and 1980s, which analysts say was intended to send a signal to Russia and China that the United States can fight wars on several fronts at the same time. The Washington Wall Street Journal, assessing this show of military force unprecedented since the 1980s, concluded: “U.S. tightens focus on China after Afghanistan withdrawal” [17].

Beijing was neither surprised nor frightened. The Chinese newspaper “Global Times,” which covers international issues from the point of view of Beijing, stated that China is no longer the same country that it was a century ago, and advised Washington, which considered it as its main strategic competitor, to follow the rules of the game of great powers and not test China on strength [18].

The signing by Washington of a new Treaty on Security with Australia and Great Britain and the establishment of the AUKUS (Australia, United Kingdom, United States) union is rightly considered as a step aimed at countering China. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin explained that the Biden administration had decided to move closer to Australia in the face of China’s belligerent behavior and that even before the announcement of its creation, he had discussed “China’s destabilizing activities” with Australian ministers [19].

When considering China’s relations with the new regime in Afghanistan, it is obvious that their nature depends to a decisive extent on whether or not each side interferes in the internal affairs of the other. For Beijing, this means that the Taliban cannot export extremism to China’s troubled region of Xinjiang. China fears that Uyghur militants may step up their terrorist activities in Xinjiang through Afghanistan after the victory of the Taliban. It is important for the Taliban that the Chinese authorities turn a blind eye to human rights abuses in Afghanistan in exchange for withdrawing support for Muslims in Xinjiang. According to Beijing, such an exchange is possible, because China’s participation in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan may show some other countries how Beijing supports regimes against which the United States pursues a policy of sanctions and international isolation. “China will be our main partner and represents a great opportunity for us because it is ready to invest in our country and support reconstruction efforts,” said a Taliban spokesman [20].

As for economic interests, they are of considerable importance, but they are not decisive. In 2019, China was the fifth largest export destination for Afghan goods after the UAE, Pakistan, India, and the United States [21]. For Beijing, it is more important to gain access to minerals and strategically important transport routes.

Pakistan has a long history of cooperation with the Taliban. Pakistan was one of only three countries to recognize the Taliban government in the 1990s, and the last to break official relations with it in 2001. Islamabad helped rebuild the group after it was overthrown by US forces later that year. For nearly two decades, Pakistan has provided Taliban leaders with shelter and medical care for wounded militants. This assistance helped the Taliban survive. It is hard to argue that the solution to the Afghan problem largely depended on the policies of Islamabad, but such influence is unlikely to continue now that the Taliban are in full control of Afghanistan.

Taliban leaders no longer need safe haven in neighboring Pakistan, and the military arsenal they inherited from the Afghan army and departing US troops eliminates the dire need for Pakistani weapons. Pakistan is losing leverage at a time when it itself may become dependent on Kabul for security [22].

The rise of the Taliban in Kabul will inevitably further inspire Pakistani insurgent or terrorist groups with the same ideological roots and the same goals as the Taliban. The most dangerous group of this kind is the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) [23]. While the Pakistani security forces have succeeded in largely limiting the terrorist potential of the group, possible orderly contact between the two movements on both sides of the border and the resumption of TTP terrorist activities in Pakistan remain a major concern for Islamabad.

The Taliban’s victory represents a huge loss of influence for India, which was a major development partner in Afghanistan during the American presence but had not previously entered into a serious relationship with the Taliban. Meanwhile, Pakistan has made a determined effort to end India’s presence in Afghanistan, with the support of longtime allies of the Taliban and the Haqqani network. The prospect of expanding Chinese influence may well lead to a further decline in Indian influence both in Afghanistan and in the region.

India has serious concerns that Afghanistan could be used as a springboard for terrorist attacks on its interests. Anti-India terrorist groups, including the Pakistani-backed Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohamed, are present in Afghanistan and have reportedly taken active part in the Taliban military campaign [24].

For now, the Indian government is trying to clarify the intentions and actions of the new Taliban-dominated government in Kabul before making tough political decisions. Decades of investment in infrastructure and capacity building, and the resulting soft power, are not eroded. India’s support for the Afghan people and efforts to stabilize Afghanistan on the basis of a regional consensus will undoubtedly continue.

It is rightly stated that in the peaceful development of events in Afghanistan, perhaps one of the most interested parties is neighboring Iran [25]. In the years leading up to the 2001 US invasion, the Taliban had a tense relationship with Tehran. The confrontation between the two sides escalated to such an extent that the Iranian government and the forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) actually helped American troops occupy Afghanistan then. This was partly due to the enmity between Iran and the Taliban, and to a greater extent, to Tehran’s fears that Washington could perceive its refusal to cooperate with the international coalition as a hostile act and thereby aggravate relations with the United States. Over time, the Iranian strategy gradually changed [26]. Iran has not stopped the Taliban from creating security problems in Afghanistan and increasing pressure on US troops, even though Shiite Iran and the Sunni Taliban are not natural partners. With the appearance of an ISIS branch in Afghanistan in 2015, Tehran found another area for cooperation with the Taliban—deterring the jihadists of this group, whom Iran considered a threat to its borders.

Following the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul, several Iranian officials hailed the collapse of the US-backed government and showed a positive attitude towards the Taliban. At the moment, Iran does not seem to rule out a peaceful outcome of events in Afghanistan and the formation of a post-American government in Kabul, with which it can have normal good neighborly relations [27]. Tehran’s main priority is the internal stability of Afghanistan, which, in turn, is dictated by political pragmatism, generated by the interests of Iran’s national security.

In Iran, where three million Afghans already live, a possible new wave of migration is expected. The Iranian authorities intend to exercise caution when accepting immigrants and have introduced a special regime on a number of sections of the Iran-Afghan border. Many Afghans living in Iran, both registered refugees and economic migrants, fear for relatives and friends, especially women who have fallen under Taliban rule. Let us not forget that Iran, as a Shiite-dominated country, has special ties to the Shiite population of Afghanistan and a moral obligation to protect them from any possible sectarian violence. For now, the Taliban have promised not to infringe on the rights of the Shiites, and Tehran hopes that this will remain so when the Taliban’s power is consolidated.

CONCLUSIONS

The US war in Afghanistan is a complete failure. It is also a failure of NATO and the European Union. The chaotic and swift collapse of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan marks an ignominious end to American intervention in that country, with dangerous consequences for the region. The Biden administration handled the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan surprisingly poorly. The hasty, ill-planned, and ill-executed US withdrawal was based on an erroneous agreement signed by the Trump administration, which the Taliban openly disregarded.

Comparison of the current situation with the situation after the first arrival of the Taliban government in Kabul in 1996 shows that their current position is much stronger. Before the start of the military intervention of the United States, the Taliban was almost completely isolated in the world. With the exception of a few countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, no other countries have recognized the Taliban regime. And although Afghanistan is still in transition, it can be concluded that terrorist groups pose a serious threat to the Taliban, but not to the point of overthrowing their regime. The government of Afghanistan will be dominated by the Taliban, and other political forces or ethnic groups will play secondary roles.

The Taliban has promised to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a base for terrorist organizations to act against other countries and to fight them to prevent threats to their neighbors. If the Taliban regime does not control Afghanistan well, then the country may again become a safe haven and base camp for international terrorists. The problems of drugs, refugees, and the possible spread of political and social instability in Afghanistan will also continue to be of serious concern to neighboring countries.

The Biden administration, which believed that Kabul would not be captured by the Taliban after the Americans left, is now asserting that neither ISIS nor al-Qaeda will pose a global threat anytime soon. It is almost certainly wrong.

Washington does not have a peace plan for Afghanistan. Contrary to the American strategy of the last 20 years, the Taliban have become the leading political force there, and external influence on the situation in the country is moving from the United States and NATO to neighboring countries, including China and Russia. The Biden administration pushed away the new Afghan regime led by the Taliban. The policy of Afghanistan has changed radically, and the development of the country is on a completely different trajectory. Moscow and Beijing are more willing to help the new Afghanistan achieve stability and establish normal relations with the international community.

The United States is left with limited leverage, consisting of conditional economic aid, recognition of the Taliban government, lifting sanctions on the movement’s leadership, and granting the new government access to international financial systems and international institutions. The Biden administration does not intend to take steps to ease the toughness of its policy towards Afghanistan, led by the Taliban. There is no doubt that the collective punishment of the Afghan people through the country’s economy is a backward geopolitical strategy. If the country becomes a “failed” (to use Washington’s terminology) state, it will become vulnerable to takeover by terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State of Khorasan.