Why the U.S. Should Stay Invested in Postwar Afghanistan’s Infrastructure

Why the U.S. Should Stay Invested in Postwar Afghanistan’s Infrastructure
An excavator works on a road construction project in Kabul, Afghanistan, Feb. 10, 2020 (AP photo by Rahmat Gul).

As the United States prepares for a full withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan, potentially as soon as next spring, a cloud of uncertainty hangs over its efforts to promote infrastructure development in Central and South Asia. Since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, China has become a major player in the region, especially through the 2013 announcement of its Belt and Road Initiative, a major infrastructure program involving hundreds of billions of dollars in investments throughout Asia and beyond.

The rise of Chinese spending and influence has overshadowed America’s efforts, inducing a kind of collective amnesia among many in Washington’s foreign policy community. The years of focused effort to promote connectivity and growth in the region, across multiple administrations going back to President George W. Bush, seem to have been forgotten.

Yet, as Evan Feigenbaum, one of Bush’s top Asia hands in the State Department during the 2000s, has noted on several occasions, “China did not invent Asian connectivity.” For much of the past two decades, the United States and the international financial institutions that it backs have funded projects to connect landlocked Afghanistan with its neighbors and the wider region. There is ample strategic and economic rationale to continue doing so.

Keep reading for free!

Get instant access to the rest of this article by submitting your email address below. You'll also get access to three articles of your choice each month and our free newsletter:

Or, Subscribe now to get full access.

Already a subscriber? Log in here .

What you’ll get with an All-Access subscription to World Politics Review:

A WPR subscription is like no other resource — it’s like having a personal curator and expert analyst of global affairs news. Subscribe now, and you’ll get:

  • Immediate and instant access to WPR’s fully searchable library of 16,000+ articles
  • Daily articles with original analysis, written by leading topic experts, delivered to you every weekday
  • Weekly in-depth reports on important issues and countries
  • Daily links to must-read news and analysis from top sources around the globe, curated by our keen-eyed team of editors
  • The Weekly Wrap-Up email, with highlights of the week’s most important coverage, and what’s to come.
  • Completely ad-free reading.

And all of this is available to you when you subscribe today.

More World Politics Review