Geopolitical imperatives and implications of the withdrawal of the US and its allies from Afghanistan Cover Image

Imperativele și implicațiile geopolitice ale retragerii SUA și aliaților săi din Afganistan
Geopolitical imperatives and implications of the withdrawal of the US and its allies from Afghanistan

Author(s): George Vlad Niculescu
Subject(s): Military history, Political history, Security and defense, Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), Present Times (2010 - today), Geopolitics, Peace and Conflict Studies
Published by: Editura Militară
Keywords: Afghanistan; NATO; war; insurgency; withdrawal; post-western; Talibans; reconstruction; geopolitics;

Summary/Abstract: From a global geopolitical perspective, the US’s and NATO’s withdrawal from Afghanistan reflects a radical shift in their strategic priorities: a departure from Halford Mackinder’s concept of the Heartland, encapsulated în Z. Brzezinki’s 1990s definition of Central Asia aș the „Eurasian Balkans.”, thus preferring to prioritize the Indo-Pacific Ocean (and implicitly its Rimland), most probably motivated by the strategic imperatives of the« containment »of China and Russia, in the international system of the 21st century. In the short term, it is still unclear whether the Taliban-led Afghanistan will have a stable government with liberal macroeconomic thinking, willing to work with Central Asian neighbors to complete projects beneficial to trade and regional development. The future will tell us whether Afghan leaders, including the Taliban, will be able to show that the blood and wealth shed by Western countries in Afghanistan over the past 20 years has not been wasted în vain just to return to a pre-modern war-torn country plagued by hatred and death and with a future very similar to its tragic past.

  • Issue Year: 2021
  • Issue No: 3-4
  • Page Range: 27-34
  • Page Count: 8
  • Language: Romanian