 2021 is coming to an end and considering the Omicron wave in many parts of the world, it wouldn't be surprising if you thought nothing much has really changed. But in fact, the past year has seen some dramatic developments across the world. We'll be talking about a lot of these on news click in the coming days as well. But the one country which has perhaps seen the most drastic change is Afghanistan. One year ago, nobody would have believed that the Taliban would be in power now. But a Taliban is in power, there's a massive crisis going on due to the interference of Western powers. We are going to be talking about all this in mapping fault lines. We are with us, Prabir Pulkhaista. Prabir, so Afghanistan, like I said, I mean, six or one year ago, there was the American troops who were supposed to be withdrawing. The idea was that there would be some kind of national coalition government. All that, of course, not happening. But once the Taliban took over, what we saw was a complete abdication of responsibility by the international powers who actually caused so much of the conflict in the first place. And now we hear occasionally stories of the kind of suffering Afghanistan is going through. So before we look at the global ramifications of this crisis, how do you see the situation in Afghanistan right now? Well, the situation in Afghanistan is extremely dire as the papers have also started reporting. But it's interesting, there was so much of hypocrisy, so much of crocodile tears about the fate of Afghan women. Apparently, that's why the American soldiers were there or the NATO soldiers were there. All of that has gone off the map. If you see, nobody's talking about it now. Because what Afghanistan is facing, even that is not a matter of news anymore. That the fact that 80% of Afghanistan probably more are facing starvation. They don't have any money to be able to buy either gas, oil or food. All of that is off the map. Because ultimately, the reason for the disaster that happened in Afghanistan still continues. The Americans do not have troops there, but they control the economy of Afghanistan because about $9.5 billion are with the United States. They're refusing to release that. Afghan government was dependent hugely on external support, loans, aid and so on. 80% of Afghanistan's expenditure was really met from aid and loans. All that has stopped and even the agencies which are providing aid were unable to do so because of US Treasury sanctions on the entities which Afghan government controls. Essentially because Taliban controls Afghan government and Taliban was under sanctions. Of course, those sanctions have just recently been lifted. But we don't see any movement with respect to the money that the West, particularly the US holds, at least giving a part of it back to the Afghan government that is now in place, whether you recognize it or not, in order to avoid the extremely dangerous conditions towards which Afghanistan is hurtling, which might create a really huge refugee problem if they allow the Afghan government to collapse. So, Rabid, an important question that really comes out of Afghanistan and from a global context is what really does it mean for the world order, so to speak, considering that NATO and the United States, which were very much involved in the war in Afghanistan, basically withdrew, they were basically defeated. There's no other way of really putting it. And you see this alongside, say, instances like Iraq, where again, US is supposed to withdraw soon, Syria for that matter, or Libya, where Gaddafi's son is a strong candidate for becoming the president. So, from a global context, how do we sort of also understand the defeat of the US in Afghanistan? You know, I think this is the end of an era which started with 1990, the belief. This is 30 years of the fall of Soviet Union and the socialist bloc in Europe, that this is really the failure of that 30 years in which the United States and NATO considered themselves to be really the center of the world. That entire geo-strategic power was now the United States and its allies. And therefore, you have seen, as you have said, invasions of other countries. You had the illusion that you could build a new strategic order based on the fact that US could dictate to all the countries if it wanted to, including Russia, the successor state of Soviet Union. So, all this, I think this illusion of what would be called a single global hegemon and the rebirth of the empire, so to say, except it's not the British empire, but it would be the American empire. All these illusions, which was very much what was undergirding what's called the new cons in the United States, I think that is, this is the end of that era that we now accept, or the Americans have started to accept that they are no longer the sole hegemon of the world. They are not the overlords which will determine what they still talk about, the new global order, the international global order, all of which essentially means we tell you what to do, you follow what we tell you. The rules of the international order I said by us, they're not international law. I think all of that, that era has come to an end. And this is a very, very significant event for different regions, at least in Asia, clearly. We have West Asia, which you already have sent the possibility of the US withdrawing, though Libya is North Africa, you have clearly in the region, what's called the Middle East and North Africa, the Mina region, you have changes which are taking place, the acceptance by Saudi Arabia, that they have to make up in some way or the other with the new emergence that is taking place. They've started talking to Iran. They have also normalized their relations with Qatar, who they, as you know, were almost on verge of war at one point, or invading Qatar actually. United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia both together have started also talking to Iran. So you see a new re-approachment between these countries. They start, they're saying that let's see whether we can think about the region together. And instead of letting America decide what our fate should be, we should start deciding it ourselves. And Turkey is going to be player in all of this. Turkey and United Arab Emirates, as you know, had extremely bad relations. So all of them had decided the America, except of course Iran, America will just tell them what to do. And they would have to then see how to play the game under the American rules. I think that is changing or has changed dramatically. So this is a watershed moment. And people shouldn't think that this is just withdrawal from Afghanistan. It's reconfiguring in this region. And of course, you have West Asia, Central Asia and you have South Asia, all these three. You will see a reconfiguration taking place. And the realization that it is no longer that you go to United States and then both supplicants say, you know, give us justice. You know, that guy is wrong, that country is wrong. And this one will say, you know, that country is wrong. And Americans will finally dictate quote and quote what is peace. This is end of a much larger era because you will see it's, is it also the end of the colonial post-colonial, the neo-colonial and finally the global hegemon era? Are we seeing an end of this? And are you going to see a new reality, international reality emerge? An important part of it is, how does the global hegemon which you said was defeated in Afghanistan? How does it reconcile to the new reality that has emerged? Right, probably in the context of what you mentioned about how the US is going to deal with its defeat, so to speak. There is of course the NATO alliance which is very integral to this whole operation. And we've seen in over the year, differences have emerged between various NATO powers at the same time over the Russia crisis. There's been a different approach altogether. So what really is the future of NATO? Well, it was clear that Biden was using Ukraine in order to try and see whether he could cement over the differences that had emerged because the US decision to withdraw was not taken with any discussions within NATO. Well, the decision to invade was taken after discussions with NATO, particularly as the UN Security Council was not involved. The US required some legitimacy and NATO was to provide them that legitimacy that other European countries are also with them. When the withdrew, because the withdrew, the announcement was made first by the United States before NATO countries got to know about it, there was a risk to the NATO as an institution itself. That what does NATO really mean? Is it anything but the Americans taking decisions on behalf of NATO and informing the others? And I think that is why also Biden is using Ukraine as an issue to tell the Europeans, look, you still lead us. Without us, you're going to be in trouble because Russia can dictate what it wants. They are more militarily much more powerful than you. We need to protect you. Therefore, you follow our lead. And I think a lot of the Ukrainian crisis, Ukraine's crisis must be understood in the context to re-consolidate NATO. Now, is that the re-consolidation of NATO possible or does NATO have a life after Afghanistan? The answer is, if you look at the two ways of looking at the world, one is looking at people. You have the Eurasian land mass, which is about 70% of the world's population. And then you have this other islands in the ocean, one of which the larger ones are really Africa, and then you have North America and South America. So if you have these, and I'm not counting Australia in this because it's a much smaller irrelevant island in this context, if you see this, then the United States focus are not Atlantic, that's what NATO is, North Atlantic Treaty Organization makes sense because they are using the Atlantic as the basis for projecting power into Europe. And therefore, telling the European countries, you don't have military power, we are the ones who are going to support you if you have a problem with Ukraine. So this to be NATO's role still for the United States trying to keep their hegemony over Western Europe and using that at least to dominate over other parts of the world because Europe and Western Europe and the United States put together could control the financial world for at least for the foreseeable time, at least next two, at least two, three decades. So that is what they're trying to consolidate and trying in the name of Indo-Pacific to also rope in Australia, Japan, India, and saying, okay, this is our counter to in Southeast Asia to China. But the focus really is going to be Europe because it is here that Russia has laid down some lines on Ukraine, we have discussed it time and again. This issue is not going to go away because Ukraine as well as Western Europe requires gas, requires Russian transit of gas and economic factors and geography, will it counter the strategic vision that the United States has? That is a key question for Europe. And I think the play in the world today is not only going to be West Asia as it might appear to be after the fall of Afghanistan to Taliban, but also Europe. And I think that's where new issues are coming up or old issues are re-emerging. And of course we have the Taiwan, China, the US triangle again. So these are the two issues which are really the consequence of the fall of Afghanistan. Absolutely. Thank you so much Praveen for talking to us. How will Afghanistan fare in the coming year? What will happen to some of these international alliances? We'll be following all this on mapping fault lines. Until then, keep watching NewsClick. So this was actually...