Twentieth-Century American Imperialism

Between 1747 and 1798 the Durrani rulers established Afghanistan as tribal confederacy. By the middle of the eighteenth century the British had imperial control in India and were looking to expand their empire to the north. The British looked to take control of the territory of Afghanistan to use as a buffer state. By the early twentieth century the world starts to see Afghanistan emerge from its isolation and control from the British empire. As the territory starts to emerge from its isolation it is seen as a sovereign state in 1919. As Afghanistan emerged from its control by Britain it lost subsidy, with the loss of British subsidy the need to create a domestic resource base rose. Afghanistan looked to increase its legitimacy as state and establish a recourse base under the rule of the Musahiban family by institutionalized private property and developing a new infrastructure network. In 1978 there was a communist coup. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in fear of a loss of its communist influence on the government. The Soviet communist regime was in control until 1989. In 1989 the Soviet communist government collapsed leading to the Soviet Union Leaving Afghanistan and
leaving the Afghan communist government vulnerable to Mujahideen forces. In an attempt to make Afghanistan an Islamic State the Taliban which was comprised of Islamic guerrilla fighters who fight against non-Muslim forces called Mujahideen’s. These Mujahideeen groups rose up villages in southern Qandahar and refugee camps in Pakistan to fight the Afghan communist government. On April 19th, 1992 the Afghan communist government in Kabul fell to Mujahideen forces. The violent interactions between the Afghan communist government and the Mujahideen forces left the country in severe destruction.
These acts of violence and state of destruction lead to a very rapid mobilization of society, political structures, economic processes, and social classes. While in control the Taliban created a transit treaty between Pakistan and Afghanistan. This treaty established an illegal smuggling network. This illegal network created an artificial system that could never establish a stable national economy “the poor economic condition of the country and the unstable economic condition would cause further political instability in the country, and the Islamic Emirate may never have the chance to become a normal and functional administration” (History of terroism Nojumi
178). In Afghanistan the shortage of water and cropland has crippled farming in the countryside and forced many of these farmers into squalid urban slums. These shortages have led to a demographic explosion of the most dangerous social group of all, urbanized, unemployed young men. These stressors compounded with constant conflict that have shattered economies give rise to terrorist organizations and terrorist activity that are looking to take control of economic processes.
Afghanistan was left on its own by Britain and then invaded by the Soviet Union and then left vulnerable to Islamic forces, the country has been in constant conflict. Because of this constant conflict it has left the country open to a weak political system and poor economic development. The country has seen failures in the processes of trying to establish businesses and many impediments in private-sector production and investment such as an underdeveloped financial sector and infrequent access to finances. It has seen a severely underdeveloped labor market, because of this underdevelopment the government has very little control on monetary policy.