On the global implications of Afghanistan's new economic and socio-political realities for economic and strategic risk management

Abstract

We examine here the global implications of Afghanistan's new economic and socio-political realities as an Islamic emirate. The risk management involved here not as much one of managing a simple economic and financial risk as of having to examine whether the rest of the world should merely watch how the current situation evolves there or explore the possibilities of whatever can be done to help manage the risk to the global order itself. As such, three facts readily stand out. One, the emerging Taliban regime is Pashtun dominated but the Pashtun nation actually straddles Afghanistan as well as Pakistan, particularly as the latter is now in a economically tattered state. Note that Pashtuns are the dominant ethnolinguistic group in multi-ethnic Afghanistan but over two-thirds of Pushtuns actually live in the neighboring Pakistan and most of the Pushtoons have never accepted this Britishimposed division of their land over a century ago. Two, despite all their protestations, the last time the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, during the 1996-2001 period, their most notable contributions to the world's harmony, peace and prosperity were the infamous, albeit involuntary, 9/11 bombings in the US, the deliberate destruction of 11th century AD Buddha SCIREA Journal of Economics http://www.scirea.org/journal/Economics