THE AFGHAN CRISIS AND THE 2011 PROBLEM: WHAT NEXT?
Abstract
This May, President Obama confirmed that his country had embraced a new strategy in Afghanistan by saying: “The U.S. can start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in July 2011.” The White House supported the new strategy with a 30-thousand-strong additional contingent in this country and a bigger military budget.
The analytic community was left to guess: would the withdrawal be complete, or would it introduce new approaches to an old problem? What was behind the new president’s initiative?
How would it affect Central and South Asia, to say nothing of the global geopolitical balance of power?
These and a multitude of other questions are born by the fact that as part of the U.S. foreign policy orbit Afghanistan is no longer a “thing in itself” (to borrow a philosophical term), but just one element among many others in the intricate geopolitical and geo-economic mosaic.
It is beyond the scope of one article, no matter how long it is, to deal with all the aspects of the current processes, therefore I have limited myself to the financial and economic issues behind the planned withdrawal, the impact of the
Pakistani factor, and the possible consequences as seen from Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, and the Central Asian capitals.
Downloads
References
See: “Krupneyshie strany-kreditory SShA,” available at [http://rating.rbc.ru/article.shtml?2009/03/03/32323111].
See: “Yaponia oboshla Kitay i stala krupneishim kreditorom SShA,” available at [www.newsru.com/finance/7feb2010/bonds.html], 17 February, 2010.
See: “Promyshlennoe proizvodstvo SShA rastet bystree, chem ozhidalos,” available at [www.k2kapital.com],17 February, 2010.
[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/opinion/12iht-edrogozin.html].
See: USA-China Trade Statistics and China’s World Trade Statistics, USA International Trade Commission, 2009.
See: “Prezident Irana posetil Afghanistan s antiamerikanskim vizitom,” available at [http://www.kommersant.ru/oc.aspx?DocsID=1334956], 11March, 2010.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2010 AUTHOR
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
You are free to:
- Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially.
- Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
- The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
Under the following terms:
- Attribution — You must give appropriate credit , provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made . You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
- No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Notices:
You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation .
No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.
