 We're approaching the 15th of August and many of you must be remember that this date, 15th of August last year, marked an important moment in the history of both Asia and that of the world, in fact. After an offensive that began in the first of May, the Taliban suddenly took over the whole of Afghanistan. The government with the former government which had been backed by the United States crumbled, collapsed, Ashraf Ghani left the country. This was even before the U.S. troops had left the country with as per an agreement with Afghanistan. So one year later, where does the country stand? What are the issues that actually dominate the region? How has the Taliban negotiated with various regional powers? What is the U.S. doing? We'll be discussing all this in this episode of Mapping Fault Lines. We're joined by Prabir Pukhaisar. Prabir, so we talked about this last year, the kind of lightning offensive with which the Taliban took over Afghanistan. More correctly, the lightning collapsed of the U.S. forces. Right, absolutely. Of course, the U.S. government over there. But let's face it. It was the collapse of the U.S. forces or the withdrawal of the U.S. forces that led to that rapid collapse of the rapid capture of the Taliban. Absolutely. So that point we've actually talked about how, of course, they've captured power. But now is where the difficult part starts because there are so many issues for the Taliban to take care of. The whole country was in a state of complete collapse. One year down the line, quickly let's quickly go through where Afghanistan stands today in terms of what was promised, for instance, in terms of what the expectations were. You know, first is, of course, the United States will claim what we promised was in the context of what Taliban would or would not do. So they have captured the whole of Afghanistan. And we don't have to agree to it. We owe nothing to Afghanistan. That's the formidable part of what they can say. The reality is that NATO, led by the United States, entered Afghanistan, took power. Really, the argument was this is only because of bin Laden. But the reality is they took over the whole country. And for almost 20 years, in fact, a little more than 20 years, they ruled the place. Not only did they rule the place, they essentially broke the existing structure of governance that existed. They created forces which are supposed to be loyal to them, but really bought with money. On top of that, there were the continuous aerial bombardment, so to say, by which targeted assassinations, using drones, using other mechanisms, continued. And we don't know what the numbers are, but it could be as large as 20,000, 25,000 people were killed while the occupation was on. So it wasn't a war, which was a war of trying to take over the country, take over the governments. But it was also a war in which there are summary executions, so to say. And also that the American forces who were embedded in Afghanistan, they were fighting really this aerial war. They had the bases, which were quite insulated from the local population. They even had food and other things prepared by people who came from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, other places. And not the local population, because they're quite scared of them. And then, of course, they were basically doing what's called the drone war and various other missile strikes that were being executed on the ground. So this was the war which really broke the back of Afghanistan. And it was an unwinnable war. Afghanistan is not kind to people who want to come and rule it from outside. It's a very difficult country. It's a large country. And the 40 billion people of Afghanistan is also not a small population. So the expectation that you could come from outside and rule it is that the expectation has never been fulfilled in Afghanistan. The British tried, they failed. And nobody really wants to get into Afghanistan to fight a land war over there. And the US thought that since it was doing an aerial war with some ground forces and with money, they could actually remake Afghanistan, which, as you know, has really not succeeded. The problem is that having done that, the US basically has said, we have no more responsibility for Afghanistan. Even the money that the Afghan Treasury had with the US Central Bank for $8 billion was seized by the United States. An act which is really unparalleled in history except the earlier seizure of Iran's money, which was there in US banks, not of this amount. But it was about, I think, what one billion is what Iran had claimed later. And then, of course, as we know, the Venezuelan gold and just recently, of course, the Russian $300 billion lying with the US Treasury, US banks and with European Union banks. So these are the new face of imperialism we are seeing today, by which you can see the country's assets, country's money, which is lying with the US Central Bank because that's where people stored their dollar balances. So that is unfortunately the other part that post-war Afghan government, Taliban government, whether we like it or we don't, is ruling Afghanistan. There is no challenge to it as yet. Yes, small disturbances here and there, resistance as there, Pansheer Valley having some occasional strikes taking place. The Islamic State Khurasan, as it says, is also carrying out few assassinations. But the reality is the Afghan government on the ground, if it has to give food and other resources, other facilities to its people, it desperately needs money. Afghanistan does not produce in the current context of the war, Afghanistan is not going to be able to produce food for itself. Where does the food come from? How will they buy? These are all the questions which are there. Yes, Afghanistan has a lot of resources, but how do they actually get into that is the issue. And this is, I think, something which the world knows to Afghanistan. But unfortunately, the US position is, I have no more responsibility. I have destroyed Afghanistan in trying to pacify it. You know, this is the other part of it. In order to bring peace, I had to destroy it. But after having destroyed it, I have no responsibility towards it. This is really the crux of the issue. And the impact of it is not going to be in the United States. It's going to be in Pakistan. It's going to be in South Asia in a larger sense, but also in West Asia and Central Asia. And I think that's the key problem. All these countries can be destabilized. You're looking at 40 million Afghan people. It's not a small number. Absolutely. This actually brings us to the next question, which is very relevant and which is also something we flagged at that time. That considering that the US and the NATO had withdrawn, the responsibility was really with the Central Asian powers, the Central Asian countries, Afghanistan's neighbors. And we've seen some amount of diplomatic initiatives over the past one year, several meetings, the Taliban actually at some level. Although its isolation has not formally been ended, it has nonetheless been able to achieve some amount of representation here. So how do we see that situation today one year down the line? See, it's a question of having or learning to live with the Taliban. None of the surrounding powers, even Pakistan, is happy with the Taliban as it exists. Even Pakistan knows that Taliban is a destabilizing factor on its borders, that there are forces within Pakistan who also have ideologically similar positions to Taliban. Would like a completely Islamic Pakistan rule the Taliban away, shall we say. So it's not something which Pakistan is comfortable with. Yes, it would like India to be out of that. That is a short term goal it might have. But having Taliban on its borders with the Pashtun population in Pakistan, which is larger than the Pashtun population in Afghanistan itself, that's not a very comfortable situation. Then you have Iran, and there's a long conflict that Iran has had with the Taliban. Again, they have now sort of made up. So that tension is relatively less. But nevertheless, there is a tension over there too. Then we have Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan on the borders. All of them have a stake in Afghanistan. All of them also are worried about what would happen. And let's not forget also China, because this is also bordering. Though it's a very small border, Xinjiang. So all of these areas have that issue that a destable, unstable Afghanistan with 40 billion people who might have to, a large number of refugees might have to leave Afghanistan because it cannot sustain itself, is not a situation conducive to the stability of the region. So how do you stabilize Afghanistan? The reality is, of course, as we have discussed, the Taliban is essentially running Afghanistan today. And there's not any serious resistance to it. And having caught that position, can they actually maintain it in a way that they can rebuild the Afghan state? And what does it cost the Afghan people? Because the Taliban ideology hasn't changed. They are still what I would call a medievalist force with guns. They have a modern power in the sense they have the state. They have the guns. They have certainly military dominance over the situation. But the ideology that they have is not conducive to quote unquote a modern society, any sense of the term, a modern nation in any sense of the term. How do they do it? Would it not lead to other divisions coming up? There are thick divisions in Afghanistan as well. Will that come up? This time they seem to have a larger sweep. Earlier it seemed the Taliban was more confined to the Pashtun speaking people. This time they seem to have got the roots in other communities as well. So to that extent, it has a larger base. But can they really build again a modern state on the basis of what could be considered a medieval ideology is really the crux of the issue? And how do the surrounding powers, and I'll put the key ones as Iran, of course Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan is the immediate powers. But also, as you said, China and Russia. And let's not forget the spoiler in the game, which is the United States. Because the United States may decide, OK, we couldn't do anything. We'll ensure that nobody does it either. So we'll have to see what do they do because the US role at the moment, if you look at the central Asian larger picture is that they can play the role of a spoiler. But they really don't have any strong allies in the region who are willing to go with them and against others. So given that, that you have Iran as quote unquote enemy of the United States, you have China and Russia who they see as global competition. Do they have any roots in Central Asia itself? And I think for them, therefore, since not having a stake in the region could also make them feel destroying whatever peace existed, this is in their favor. And therefore, Afghanistan to be kept as a pot, keep it stirring, keep the Taliban stirring over there, keep the Taliban pot stirring, not let them stabilize, is also the position they could take. And in this, what do the other Central Asian republics do? It would be a very important question. What does Pakistan do? Because Pakistan itself is the definitial and political crisis. And as I said, Pakistan itself is not in a very comfortable position internally. These are even its internal Talibanized sections. So given that, these are the dangers that is there, India may feel that, okay, it's a zero sum game. Pakistan lost something in Afghanistan. Taliban initially was favorable to Pakistan. Now there seem to be some tensions, but it's not a zero sum game. It's everybody's interest to bring peace to Afghanistan. And reconciled for the time being, what the Taliban is the military power over there. And how do you bring Taliban to the second half of the 20th century? Forget the 21st century. That's really our challenge. Absolutely. And Prabhu, this brings us to the final question, which of course, last year when all of this happened, a big question mark came over NATO because there was divisions between the Alliance, Emmanuel Macron and the French, for instance, raising issues. And we see one year down the line, the Ukraine war has happened. NATO has acquired some fresh wind, seeming as belligerent and bellicose as ever. So how has NATO sort of, you know, revamped itself or pivoted in the aftermath of Afghanistan and now with Ukraine? Well, you know, this is a very interesting question that you're posing. Any time the US policy fails, it seems to revive with a fresh war. So it seems to need a war to be able to revive. So as you can see, it has the last 20 years. How many wars has it fought and lost? Iraq war, okay? Iraq war, they still formally have an occupation status in Iraq. They still are able to maintain their forces over there under an agreement that they have the right to do it, which the Iraq Assembly Parliament does not want to continue past resolutions, but the US is not leaving, okay? Even today, they have some outposts in Syria and they are siphoning off oil from Syria as the recent pictures show. So that this, the war in Syria is also one of those wars. I think we should add it to my list. But the other one is, of course, Libya. Still destruction of Libyan state, that was mission accomplished. Have they got a stable Libyan state today? No, civil war continues over there. So destruction of Iraq, yes. Destruction of Syria partially successful. Destruction of Libya fully successful. So destruction of Afghanistan is also successful. But where is the new state which emerges out of the destruction? The answer is none. So the failure in Afghanistan was that they had to leave before the deadline, that they actually could not withdraw without their forces almost at the edge of being overwhelmed in the Kabul airport. And if Taliban wanted, they could have actually done it. They let them go. So if we look at that, that breaking countries destroying them, that's possible for United States. But building a new state, building a stable new state, that doesn't seem to be possible. So we are in the same situation in Ukraine now. In this kind of wars, the U.S. is very good. In the destruction of an existing order, destruction of an existing state. And in this case, fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian, which is not my statement. Lindsey Graham has virtually said this, that the last Ukraine will fight to the last man. So he's virtually endorsed what critics have said. So I think that is where the United States gets a fresh lease of life. In a new war, again coming out with this, basically saying, we will bring defeat to the enemy. No longer peace to the region. I think that's where the Ukraine war is also headed. To one of these intractable wars which will go on as long as the Ukrainians are willing to pay with their bodies for what the NATO wants them to do, which is weak in Russia. See whether a part of Ukraine can be grabbed by ultimately Western capital if not the full of Ukraine. Thank you so much for being. So it does seem that the United States has moved on to a fresh war creating fresh tensions, creating for fresh disasters in yet another part of the world. Meanwhile, the people of Afghanistan, like you've seen in this video, going through a massive humanitarian crisis. Will the powers of the region be able to work together with the Taliban as it's necessary to actually bring some relief to the people remains to be seen. We'll be taking a look at similar issues in future episodes of Mapping Fault Lines. Until then, keep watching NewsClick.