 The jury is still out, but the likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely. U.S. President Joe Biden claimed that, at one point, after U.S. forces left the country, Afghanistan would not fall to the Taliban. The country would come to nearly complete Taliban control following the symbolic fall of Kabul on August 15, 2021. Despite Biden and his administration's continued attempts to subvert the gravity of the situation, not only has the human rights situation deteriorated in Afghanistan, but the geopolitical implications of such a foreign policy blunder are far reaching. Today, I'm here to discuss not what the Taliban has changed within Afghanistan, but rather outside its borders, and some consequences that may not be initially inferred. Trying not to spend too long on the subject of Afghan internal policy, I will briefly explain some reasons why America failed to leave behind a stable and democratic Afghanistan. First of all, you must address the obvious fact that the United States and Afghanistan belong to two completely different world civilizations. Within the Muslim world, Western-style democratic governments do not prevail, but rather a range of absolute monarchies. How absolute these monarchies are varies by country, and unstable dictatorships exist. The second type of government is usually what so-called democracies devolve into. Examples including Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and Libya, while the most stable countries in the Islamic civilization tend to be the monarchies, such as the Persian Gulf states in Saudi Arabia. Iran was like this also until the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Some of the least repressive regimes in the Muslim world would also happen to be monarchies, with Kuwait and Morocco scoring high in comparison to their neighbors on the freedom score. Switching gears slightly, the United States tried to create a Western-style democracy and war-torn Iraq after the deposition of Saddam Hussein. One surprisingly this didn't work, as the country has since fallen to an autocracy and major instability, with war gripping the country, either in the rise of ISIS or in other insurgencies. What the United States could have done instead was instating a stronger government during this time of crisis to effectively prevent any instability like what happened in our world from occurring. Obviously, the US would not want to establish a repressive and autocratic monarchy in the likes of Saudi Arabia, but one that could give the people some representation, a constitutional monarchy of some form. You would think that the US learned its lesson in Iraq to leave behind a stronger government in Afghanistan, considering their continued instability during the US military stay. Unsurprisingly they didn't learn, and Afghanistan was left an unstable mess given to the mercy of Islamists after US forces left. Admittedly, there is another reason behind America's failed venture in Afghanistan that can't entirely be blamed on them, and that is the geography of the region. Being extremely mountainous, the ability to consolidate full control of the country is very difficult, as the great abundance of small valleys gives rebel groups proper geographic protection from their enemies, allowing them to persist despite their odds. The reason the Taliban was able to stick around during the US occupation of Afghanistan was partly due to this geographic protection, but many of their fighters were actually kept on the largely uncontrolled Pakistan side of the border. This worked due to the Taliban's ethnic Pashtun loyalties, and Pashtuns on the Pakistan side of the border had sympathies for them. This kind of guerrilla warfare has prevented large-scale modern empires such as Britain and Russia from fully controlling the country also. With the Taliban set to be the internationally recognized government of Afghanistan, it is important to see who their major partners will be on the global stage. The prospects of growing relations between the Taliban government and China are showing up all over the place in the news. With China being the major rival to US and global affairs, the possibility for the anti-Western Taliban to form a great partnership with China seems logical. This would give China a geographically expansive and continuous block of allies in the Middle East and Central Asia, and ample protection from foreign threats in this region of the world. Mineral prospects in Afghanistan may also attract Chinese investment. The major problem with this partnership, however, lies within China's own borders. The Uyghur-led Turkistan Islamic Party, fighting for the independence of the Uyghurs from China and an Islamic state in Central Asia, has been supported by groups like al-Qaeda, who remain active in Afghanistan also. Though China wants to work with the Taliban regime to reduce terrorism in the Xinjiang province, the potential for increased cooperation of Islamist movements is never off the table, considering the fact of course that the Taliban itself is an Islamist movement. Just like in Central Asia, however, not all of China's partners are going to like each other. Iran and the Taliban do not seem to be getting on to good terms, as the Sunni Islamist intentions of the Taliban clash with Iran's Shia-led government, and Persian speakers of Afghanistan constituted much of the resistance against the Taliban. However, Pakistan has taken a softer approach to the Taliban takeover, prioritizing some form of cooperation. What is important to look into after the fall of Kabul is what reputation this will give the United States on the global stage. The recent actions of the United States and Afghanistan have three major implications on their global image. First of all, the U.S. will be perceived as less loyal and protective of its allies, which leads to the other two implications. America's adversaries will see them in their time of weakness as opportunity for pursuit of their own interests, and America's allies will have to begin to pull a bit of their own weight in a possible event that America does not effectively defend them. In essence, America will have a reduced positive reputation because of the state they left Afghanistan in. After being there for 20 years, the American military left the country in the same state that it had been before they intervened, run by the Taliban with Islamist interests intact. The manner in which the U.S. left was also appalling to the global stage, with miscalculations and lack of planning running rampant throughout the Biden administration's plan to pull troops from the country. Example of these blunders include Biden's assurance to the world that the Taliban would not seize control of Afghanistan after the U.S. had left, and that American troops would all exit the country by August 31st. Yet today the Taliban controls the entire country, and many Americans and allies still remain behind the Taliban's borders. This is not to mention the disasters that have occurred at the Kabul Airport as Afghans desperately tried to escape a regime which would inevitably create a deteriorated human rights situation. And throughout it all, the U.S. has been rather unclear about addressing the disasters to the world. These reasons and probably several more that I've missed are why the reputation of the U.S. took its allies in the global orders at stake after this disaster. To America's adversaries, this opens new opportunities to push their power where they need to. The Taliban has been taking a more aggressive stance against Taiwan recently, and even more now with America's blunder in Afghanistan, as in China's eyes America has become less willing to defend its allies overall, and they can take advantage of this situation. Mainland aircraft have entered Taiwanese airspace several times in the past few months, and both the mainland and Taiwan have been building up their militaries as they have become much more wary of each other. America's other rival, Russia, could also seek expansion in the wake of this weakening of American reputation, with Ukraine and Georgia being possible targets. However, there have been no new developments in either country as a result of the Afghanistan crisis. Though other American allies in Europe and East Asia may not be an immediate danger from adversaries, it still seems likely that these countries may begin to take a more hard line on national defense, and begin relying on America less. Europe could create its own defense block that becomes more independent of American influence, though they would still work very closely with the United States due to their shared ideals and interests. In conclusion, the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan actually has far-reaching effects that may not seem immediately obvious. Though the American reputation has been damaged by this blunder, it is certain that the United States will keep its global presence, yet some greatly needed changes to the order, such as American allies taking a more serious line of defense, may occur as a result. The US and its allies must also be more alert for countries like China taking advantage of America's weakened position, and act accordingly. 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