The Graveyard of Empires: Human Cost of War in Afghanistan (Published)
Afghanistan is a land that is infamously difficult to administer. Empire after empire, countries after countries have tried to conquer the nation but have failed to do so. The USA withdrawal resulted in their names joining the long list of those who came before them. With that, it finally draws the curtains on the 20 years of war in the country that spanned over 4 USA presidencies. The war began with the US and its allies invading Afghanistan post the 9/11 attack on US soil by bombing Afghanistan under “Operation Enduring Freedom.” What followed was the struggle to rebuild Afghanistan, Taliban insurgency in the region, the USA surge, the subsequent drawdown of troops to the ultimate peace process. This paper analyses the human cost of the war. It further discusses the policy changes that are needed to ensure a comprehensive understanding of this issue. Various academic literature, articles, opinion pieces and various other sources are used as secondary sources.
Citation: Apoorva Iyer (2021) The Graveyard of Empires: Human Cost of War In Afghanistan, International Journal of International Relations, Media and Mass Communication Studies, Vol.7, No.3, pp.1-25
Keywords: Afghanistan, Taliban, USA, War
American policy directions in the Central Asian region (Published)
The subject of the research is the areas of the USA policy in Central Asia. The object of the research is the policy of the USA. The author of the article underlines particular areas of the region’s life the USA policy is directed at. These are the human rights and support of civil liberties organizations, the process of democratization in the region and assertion of democratic values, trades and investments. The states of the region have rich natural resources such as uranium, gas, oil, aluminum, cotton, and gold. At the same time, they have very different state structures, – democratic, authoritarian and neutral. The researcher provides trading volumes of the USA with Central Asia member states for 2013 as well as data about the financial support that has been given by America during the period from 1992 till 2015. The economic structure of the member states is oriented at the markets of the foreign states that are parts of the WTO and Eurasian Economic Union. The author of the article focuses on the contents of such USA programs as the ‘ensuring safety and control over military equipment’, ‘drug control’, and ‘anti-terrorist campaign’. The main areas of America’s policy in Kyrgyzstan were more of political, military, humanitarian and anti-terroristic nature while the economic factor was not so evident. Thus, during the post-Soviet period of their development, the region’s countries selected different political, economic and humanitarian policy (democratic, authoritarian or neutral). That had a different effect on their relations with the USA.
Keywords: Central Asia, Drug Trafficking, Policy, USA, counter-terrorism, energy influence, political pluralism, ungoverned territories