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This article is part of a Fox News Digital series examining the impact of the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan a year ago this week.
Experts say Taliban rule in Afghanistan offers many opportunities for Russia and China to expand their influence in Central Asia and gain allies in key areas of the international landscape.
Afghanistan has plunged into a staggering humanitarian crisis following the US withdrawal in August 2021. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is providing aid to Afghanistan through nonprofits and international aid groups to help with food, shelter and medical care. .
However, the country continues to struggle with a number of problems stemming from a lack of international recognition, resulting in the Taliban’s struggle to stabilize political and economic problems within its borders. Lack of support from other countries.
“Many countries, especially neighboring countries around Afghanistan and countries such as Russia and China, are stepping up de facto engagement,” said Peter Mills, an Afghanistan researcher at the War Institute, to Fox News. “They have not formally recognized the Taliban government, but have occasionally hosted Taliban diplomatic representatives … meaning they stopped short of formal recognition, but their engagement with the Taliban has continued.”
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The United States remains a significant obstacle to any effort towards international recognition, even freezing $7 billion in assets in Afghan banks. This could allow other countries to intervene and affect countries as vulnerable as they are vital to the region. Stable.
Lisa Curtis Former Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for South and Central Asia at the NSC and current member of the Vandenberg Coalition Advisory Board, Lisa Curtis said the United States would condition any involvement with the Taliban. It argues that it should, but allows other similarly unscrupulous countries to intervene. To meet your own operational goals in your region.
“I think we have to ask what we are trying to achieve. We are not just engaging with the Taliban for engagement,” Curtis said. “We have to reach our goal of cracking down on terrorists. [ensuring] We are not stifling human rights, especially the rights of women and girls. ”
“Now China and Russia are trying to achieve their own goals,” she continued. “For example, the Chinese want the Taliban to crack down on ETIM, the Islamic Turkistan movement…Russia will focus on ISIS and concerns about ISIS. So each country has its own concerns about the Taliban. But the Russians and Chinese are not going to care about the rights of women and girls.
A year ago, Biden promised to “stay” in Afghanistan until “all” Americans withdrew.
Afghanistan’s economic weakness provides an ideal opportunity for China to use the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to establish influence in the country. The initiative, which some critics have called debt-trap diplomacy, involves Beijing approving loans to troubled and developing countries with huge fines if the debts cannot be repaid. I’m in.
According to Mills, such an economic approach has allowed China to establish broad and deeply entwined influence in various regions of the world, including countries on the other side of the globe, but such The project is said to be still in its early stages.
“Despite this continued engagement and ongoing talks, we have yet to really see China making any substantial investments,” Mills said, adding that there is “a lot of talk.” said there has been little movement on the idea of some projects, including mining, to build a power plant in northern Afghanistan.
“So far, we have not seen many Chinese engineers and construction workers or equipment that you would expect when starting a large-scale mining project or building major infrastructure. This may change in the near future, but so far we have not seen any concrete action,” he added.
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China has more interest in Afghanistan than Russia, and with the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine in particular, it is not that Russia has not paid attention to what is happening in Afghanistan. You may not have the financial capital to help do it, but you do have other offerings.
“One of the big things that’s fundamental is, frankly, food,” Mills explained. “The fundamentals of the situation haven’t really improved. This means that Afghanistan will continue to need significant amounts of food aid to avoid the worst-case scenario: frankly, millions are starving to death.”
Russia and Ukraine together account for about 30% of the world’s wheat supply, something that Moscow could use to gain some influence within Afghanistan. Mills also raised another, potentially more problematic proposal that Russia could exploit: military equipment and weapons.
“The Taliban continue to really prioritize both maintaining and developing their military capabilities, including the vast amount of military equipment they captured during their conquest last August.” It’s a matter.”
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“For example, our priority is to get our helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft back to operational status,” Mills continued. “They have all their fixed-wing aircraft, which they put back into service and are actively using to support military operations against anti-Taliban rebels, especially in northeastern Afghanistan… , a region where Russia can provide spare parts and equipment at relatively low cost..”
But ties with the Taliban also pay off at a time when a significant number of countries maintain tough sanctions against Russia in response to Ukraine’s aggression.President of Doctrine & Strategy Consulting and former DIA Intelligence officer Rebekah Koffler noted that Russia continues to develop close ties with the Taliban, even though it still designates them as a terrorist organization, noting how desperate Moscow is at the moment to find allies. Emphasize what you need.
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“The Taliban are still officially listed as Russia’s terrorist organization, but Putin is pragmatic about promoting a partnership with Kabul,” Koffler told Fox News Digital. There are economic and other reasons, driven by the self-interest of the Biden administration, during the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, millions of dollars worth of sophisticated military hardware has been dumped into Afghanistan. It doesn’t matter the fact that we were left to cling to an artificial timeline.”
The best way the US might pursue is to build partnerships with other countries in the region as a way to deter Chinese and Russian influence. Especially after Russia showed its willingness to invade another small country under the guise of expanding her own. sphere.
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“We definitely need to get involved in a region that has become increasingly important with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Now countries like Kazakhstan share a 4,000-mile border with Russia, and the northern regions are populated by Russians. Because there is,” Curtis insisted. “That is why I fear that Russia will try to act in northern Kazakhstan as it has done in Ukraine.”
“So we definitely need to engage with Central Asian countries and compete with Russian and Chinese influence,” she added.