Rachel Maguire
The crisis in Afghanistan stems from over a century of colonialist foreign policy. Yet following the horrific and deadly scenes from Kabul recently, UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has said “No one saw this coming.”
There has been an outcry from many who dispute Raab’s statement arguing that the current situation in Afghanistan could’ve been easily predicted and subsequently prevented.
The current crisis in Afghanistan is not simply a result of recent US and UK withdrawal but over a century’s worth of colonialist foreign policy. Between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Afghanistan was part of the British-Indian Empire. This was a time when the British colonies were becoming increasingly wary of the expansion of the Russian-Soviet Empire.
As a result of “The Great Game”, the name given to the dispute between the British-Indian and Russian Empires, Afghanistan was created as a “buffer state” between Russia and the then British-controlled India.
This construction of the modern state of Afghanistan in the early twentieth century was a political move anchored in the policies and practices of British colonialism in India and other British colonies. From 1919 after the third Anglo-Afghan war, Afghan statehood has been used as a means to separate the frontiers of various former empires, with seemingly no regard for how these actions could affect the lives of those that lived there.
It is this mindset that informed the treatment of Afghanistan by the West over the past 20 years. The rhetoric was telling, from George W Bush’s proclamation of ‘The war on terror’ and ‘The axis of evil’ to Blair’s statement of “Let us reorder this world”, the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan was evidently about the imposition of Western culture and ideals.
After two decades of Western presence in their country Afghans have experienced increased freedoms and social progress, particularly for women and girls. Despite this, there have been consistent statements from scholars and those on the ground such as Afghan Aid that the occupation by the West was nothing more than ‘nation building’ – a Neo colonial mindset utilising foreign policy and bureaucracy for the benefit of the occupying nation as opposed to the native population. The West used constant top-down impositions of policy, culture and military practice; again, without any apparent regard for the effects on the local area.
The West continue to use their colonialist past as a basis for their recent activity in Afghanistan. We see this clearly represented in the methods used to ‘rehabilitate’ the country. For example, there was no real inclusion of any local expertise and rightly or wrongly, no inclusion of the Taliban in these efforts. As a result, this led them to turn to increased violence in order to undermine the nation-building efforts of the West. Violence propagates violence and so in response, the US and UK military asserted their dominance with actions such as the grotesquely named “Mother of all bombs”. The bomb was the second-largest non-nuclear weapon belonging to the US. It was used for the first time in 2017 in a show of military strength by the Trump administration, allegedly as a means of containing the threats posed by Isis, a splinter group from the Taliban.
Precision bombing and other military operations may have subdued the Taliban for a short while but their roots were not affected. Instead, the military actions of the US and UK only served to cultivate and grow the energy and ideals of the resistance with countless lives of Afghan civilians in their wake. Back in 2017, Borhan Osman, an Isis expert with the Afghanistan Analysts Network said: “One of the grounds on which Isis is building its recruitment drive is to say they are fighting the big enemy, the Americans. The more it can drive them to the battle, the more successful they are in recruiting anti-western radicals.”
Had the most recent NATO occupation taken a different guise, could the current takeover by the Taliban have been prevented? Or is it a reasonable response to be taken by surprise like Raab?
Clearly, this current crisis could have been predicted and prevented, had the West learnt from its previous mistakes – such as the imposition of culture and ideals, and displays of military prowess. The past 20+ years of Afghan occupancy show no change from the historical relations between the West/UK and Afghanistan.
The events unfolding now in Afghanistan are a direct result of the actions of the UK and US. Consequently, numerous lives are at risk with many experiencing increased discrimination and suffering.
We could have, and should have done better.
Featured image courtesy of Mohammad Rahmani via Unsplash. No changes or alterations were made to this image. Image license can be found here.
Rachel Maguire
Rachel is a Communications Consultant based in London. She holds degree in Community Development & Public Policy and a degree in Youth Work. She is passionate about changing the narrative of development work and political participation and is on the Executive Committee of Fabian Women's Network.