On the global implications of Afghanistan's new economic and socio-political realities for economic and strategic risk management

Author(s)

Abstract
We examine here the global implications of Afghanistan's new economic and socio-political realities as an Islamic emirate. The risk management involved here not as much one of managing a simple economic and financial risk as of having to examine whether the rest of the world should merely watch how the current situation evolves there or explore the possibilities of whatever can be done to help manage the risk to the global order itself. As such, three facts readily stand out. One, the emerging Taliban regime is Pashtun dominated but the Pashtun nation actually straddles Afghanistan as well as Pakistan, particularly as the latter is now in a economically tattered state. Note that Pashtuns are the dominant ethnolinguistic group in multi-ethnic Afghanistan but over two-thirds of Pushtuns actually live in the neighboring Pakistan and most of the Pushtoons have never accepted this British-imposed division of their land over a century ago. Two, despite all their protestations, the last time the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, during the 1996-2001 period, their most notable contributions to the world's harmony, peace and prosperity were the infamous, albeit involuntary, 9/11 bombings in the US, the deliberate destruction of 11th century AD Buddha statue at Bamiyan, Afghanistan ― a world heritage site, and the flogging and enslavement of women, that itself is a matter of grave global concern. And three, the geopolitical significance of this event and the likely spillover of terror into Afghanistan's immediate neighborhood and beyond make one wonder if 20-years exile have moderated Taliban's world view and governance-style and if its new dispensation feels any need to rebuild the nation and what kind of nation it really want to build. For all intents and purposes, the new Taliban 2.0 interim government looks like the reincarnation of its old Taliban 1.0 version and raises the spectacle that the world's never ending "War on Terror" is destined to continue. We examine these issues here and, hoping against all hopes that this time it may be different and unlike the COVID 19 pandemic that keeps returning again and again, we seek the seemingly utopian goal[[1]Jensen, D. and  Lonergan, S., Ed (2012): "Assessing and restoring natural resources in post-conflict peace-building" Routledge, Taylor & Francis (Pubs.) 536 pp. https://undocs.org/pdf?symbol=en/A/CN.4/728],[[2]Jehanzeb Khalil, Saima Perveen, Zahid Ali and Zahid Shah (2015): Afghanistan’s Political and Economic Condition: An Appraisal of Likely Situation at NATO-Drawdown, FWU Journal of Social Sciences, Special Issue, Summer 2015, Vol.1, No.1 (https://www.academia.edu/32376305/Afghanistans_Political_and_Economic_Condition_An_Appraisal_of_Likely_Situation_at_NATO_Drawdown)] of starting afresh and ascertain as to what all the world can and should do, if at all, in order to help that hapless country and its new regime to at least economically stabilize.

Keywords
Failed States, Economic Risk Management, Managing Afghanistan Economy

Cite this paper
Poorna Pal, Sarkis Khoury, On the global implications of Afghanistan's new economic and socio-political realities for economic and strategic risk management , SCIREA Journal of Economics. Volume 7, Issue 1, February 2022 | PP. 20-37. 10.54647/economics79282

References