Afghanistan is a failed state Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Afghanistan is a failed state - Essay Example Afghanistan is a mountainous landlocked country found in the South Central Asia, bordered by Pakistan in the south and east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far northeast (Afghanistan, 2011).Various ethnic communities can be found in the country, with the most common being the Pashtun ethnic group, although there are a few other ethnic groups such as Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazara, and other small groups. Despite having large chunks of underutilized agricultural lands and mineral resources, the country remains one of the poorest nations mainly due to political disturbance and persistent infighting, as well as the 1980 Afghan War (Afghanistan, 2011). A failed state may be described as one where political control and order is non-existence such that the citizenry are oppressed, while the general environment is tense, and consists of warring factions and militant rebels, with the government’s armed forces always at cross-roads with these insurgents or unable to provide enough security. Afghanistan seems to have fallen in this category, not until the US embarked on enforcing democratic rule in the recent past. One reason for classifying Afghanistan as a failed state is the fact that the government institutions have been almost totally destroyed characterized by no rule of law and no democratic system of governance; for example, the Taliban militia oppressed and massacred most people opposed to their rule. In addition, the country seems to have failed due to persistent civil war, internal and external displacements, human rights violations, extreme poverty, and the unending drought with the socio-economic indicators being too poor or inadequate. Other factors have been traced to emerge from the cold war, colonial disturbance of social structures and imbalance between social mobility and nation-building processes. In the recent years, the international community has been keen to help the country rebuild itself, with the US being on the frontline. However, several challenges are encountered in nation building, one being that the policies drawn are not sound enough as the main focus is military intervention to eliminate terror and create a democratic state, but less emphasis on reconstruction. Other challenges include insufficient funding from NGOs, insecurity due to the persistence of an antiregime and anti-western insurgence, and shifting attention by the US and UK to other countries, such as Iraq, Libya and so on. Further in this paper I will look at what has failed and why Afghanistan is being compared to a failed state and the nation building efforts which have received a lot of international support have not been quite a success. The paper will also touch the role of violence, military and humanitarian issues in the Afghanistan. Failed states Countries exist to offer political and social goods in a decentralized manner to the people living within its boundaries. Therefore, countries or ganize and distribute the concerns of their people, and safeguard their people from external exploitation and influences to ensure the country’s internal environment in terms of economic, political, and social aspects are taken care of. Countries are classified as strong states, weak states, failed, or collapsed depending on their ability to provide the important political goods to their people. Any country government’s main function is to provide the political good of security by preventing cross-border invasions and infiltrations, and any reduction of it territories. This is in addition to removing domestic threats or attacks upon the national order and social systems, and providing mechanisms for dispute resolution between the citizens with the state and with fellow