I am not a geopolitical expert and do not pretend to know all the issues surrounding Afghanistan but one thing I do know is that the US and like minded allies had a significant presence in that country and it only took a week plus a few days to revert back to what it was before we got there. We in this blog and especially for ECON 360 need to think about what that means and hard it is to change a country even when it was poor and repressed. Growth is not just something that happens, it is the result of choices.
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It is unfortunate to see a nation fall after experiencing any form of economic growth. As mentioned by Cowen and Tabarrok, “growth builds on top of growth” (p. 531). The United States presence within Afghanistan seems to have created an unsustainable dependence on its resources, rather than a launching pad for future economic growth. The Afghan government was not able to effectively organize its capital due to corruption. An article in CNBC states, “the Afghan National Army is comprised of lots of units that are systemically corrupt, have no effective command and control, they don’t know how many people are in their own units, most of their equipment has been taken apart, stolen and sold off, and so they were…
It was very shocking to watch the events that took place this year involving the country of Afghanistan. You mention a great point, it is its own entity/country. It never changed. I believe many things the United States and other allies tried to do to help the country were beneficial but it was never going to change the country itself. I pray it was a good decision to exit Afghanistan the way that we did as a nation.