Anahita Saymidinova, Madeleine Reeves, and Aigerim Turgunbaeva discuss the violence along the border and the long-term implications for both countries.
ORF Special Report No. 125, December 2020, Observer Research Foundation.
This special report was written before the 2020 United States presidential elections. Under the incoming Biden administration, the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan is likely to be more gradual and “responsible”, despite the President-elect being in favour of American troops exiting the war-weary country soon. In retrospect, Donald Trump’s insistence on pulling out all US troops from Afghanistan by Christmas 2020 was not misguided, since there is little that such military presence can achieve at this stage of the war. The situation is sealed by some neighbouring nations acting as spoilers in the peace process, impeding American efforts to help bring stability to Afghanistan.