A Critical Assessment of International Post-Conflict
Reconstruction Efforts in Afghanistan

by: Florian Heyden

Index

Abbreviations  3

Introduction  4

1st part Prelude to Reconstruction  5

2nd part From Theory to Practice: Challenges for reconstruction 7

3rd part Factors Favouring Resurgence of Insecurity  12

Conclusion 14

Annex 17

Bibliography and References 18

Abbreviations

ANDS = Afghanistan National Development Strategy
ADDR = Afghan Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Program
ISAF = International Security Assistance Force
IRA = Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
UNAMA = United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan
UNSC = United Nations Security Council
USAID = U.S. Agency for International Development
WFP = World Food Program

Introduction

With the adoption of a new constitution in 2004, Afghanistan emerged anew as a member of the international community after decades of anti-Soviet jihad, interfactional and interethnic civil war, and wars of conquest and resistance by and against the radical-Islamic Taliban movement. While clearly every society emerging from armed conflict requires some degree of reconstruction, the needs of Afghanistan following allied intervention in 2001 have been by far beyond the ordinary − after a quarter-century of armed conflict the country’s entire social, political and economic infrastructure had been destroyed, while war left Afghanistan facing the worlds largest refugee population.

It has now been almost half a decade since the fall of the Taliban and billions of dollars have been pledged for reconstruction by the international community. Judging from numerous indicators, it appears that Afghanistan is on its way to be once again a "functioning state" − we will critically assess if this is really the case by considering socio-historical factors of Afghanistan′s current situation such as historical segmentation of elites and the legacy of the USSR′s invasion, followed by a critical discussion of post-conflict reconstruction efforts as well as underlying structural problems undermining these efforts.

1st part

Prelude to Reconstruction

For the better part of the last 150 years, Afghanistan has been a weak border state ¹ , financed largely through foreign aid rather than taxation. As a consequence, Afghanistan has continuously faced a rather low level of integration of society into the state and the national community. Historically, society has been held together under a small elite ruling by spending and redistributing foreign aid as well as by manipulation and reinforcement of social segmentation ² . Following a military coup with support from a pro-Soviet military in 1978, the country′s elite was more segmented than ever, trying to keep control over the weak, although growing, Afghan state coexisting in a fragile equilibrium with society. During the 25 years following the Communist coup, Afghanistan saw the complete breakdown of this equilibrium between state and society and a spiralling social and economic cataclysm − Soviet invasion and the foreign-sponsored resistance leading to a protracted war between the Soviet Union and anti-Soviet forces fighting to depose Afghanistan′s Marxist government³.

The combination of the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, the USSR′s collapse and the consequent end of Soviet aid, together with continued regional powers’ support for various competing factions of the radical Islamic mujahideen led to the collapse of the Afghan state in 1992, followed by inter-factional warfare, the strengthening of alternative power structures, and the eventual takeover of most of Afghanistan by the Taliban⁴. Before the civil war, Afghanistan′s different ethnic communities coexisted relatively peacefully, including Hindus, Sikhs and Jews who played a significant socio-economical role. Accordingly, Afghanistan had been a rather tolerant, ethnically, culturally and religiously mixed society⁵.

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1 Evans, 2002

2 Rashid, 2001

3 Rubin, 2002

4 Evans, 2002, Rashid, 2001

5 Rashid, 2001