On 30 January, 2024, President Xi Jinping provided further evidence that China formally recognises the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. This sets a dangerous international precedent and is a morally moribund approach to international relations which puts selfish resource security concerns firmly ahead of human rights and global wellbeing as China’s primary philosophical approach to international affairs.

This event is representative of the fundamental reason strategic competition with China is so important. When distilled to its purist form, it is a protracted attritional duel between liberal democracy and authoritarian socialism that is quickly devolving into a slap fight. China’s recognition of the Taliban is its latest and most outrageous slap to the face of democracy.

Prior to the Taliban’s resurgence, China maintained a cooperative relationship with the Afghan government, which included security collaboration against Uyghur militants. Following the Taliban’s takeover, China initiated engagement with the new regime, aiming to prevent terrorism from affecting its regional interests and to secure its investments, including those related to the Belt and Road Initiative.

The ethical dimensions of China’s interactions with the Taliban are seemingly complex, even on the surface. On one hand, China’s engagement is driven by security concerns and economic interests, particularly in mining and infrastructure. On the other hand, the Taliban’s lack of international recognition and domestic legitimacy raises questions about the long-term viability of these agreements.

China’s promise of economic and development support to the Taliban, in exchange for security assurances, reflects a strategic approach that prioritises resource stability and the suppression of Uyghur militancy. This is consistent with the broader narrative that China’s rise should not be feared, rather it should be welcomed as a blessing for global development and prosperity. In this regard, China’s policy towards Afghanistan could be described as clear and consistent with its approach to any country, emphasising non-interference and respect for sovereignty.

However, the practical aspects of its engagement with the Taliban present a moral quandary that is an affront to the global norms for free societies. The Taliban’s abuses of human rights are well recorded. Their suppression of women and girls, assault on freedom of speech, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and torture neatly reflect the same accusations levelled against China.  Perhaps, then, it makes sense that China has added the Taliban to its collection of thugs, villains, and reprobates which are considered its closest allies.

I feel fortunate to come from an imperfect society where egalitarianism sometimes slips into tall poppy syndrome. I now live in the heart of one of the world’s most problematic democracies, which is the one with the most wonderful aspirations. Both of these liberal democracies fundamentally embody the principles of individual rights, rule of law, democratic governance, separation of powers, societal pluralism, minority rights protection, and a vibrant civil society. If I do not like the way the current government is implementing my preferred version of democracy, I have the opportunity to change the dynamic through voting, peacefully mobilising and protesting, or even getting involved in the mechanisms of bureaucracy.  I have done all these things, spending 27 years serving a government that I was sometimes protesting against. I did not end up in jail, sanctioned, or in any way disadvantaged—quite the opposite. This is the superiority of liberal democratic ideals.

President Xi receiving the credentials of the Taliban Ambassador to Beijing could, perhaps, be perceived as an arcane diplomatic tradition. The reality, however, is that in doing so the Chinese government has provided tacit recognition of the Taliban as the official government of Afghanistan. This has dreadful implications for the women, children, resistance fighters, and civil society activists who have all been brave enough to stay or unable to leave and who should all be afforded the same freedoms as me. It also sets the preconditions for the Chinese to pull levers of influence to broaden official recognition; levers established through debt dependencies that compromise the sovereign decision-making capacity of beholden nations. It is an anathema to how democracies want to act domestically and internationally.

There is an additional, not-so-hidden subtext at this stage of the slap fight between liberal democracy and autocratic socialism. China has taken a clumsy swing at the face of every country that tried and failed to bring sustainable democracy to Afghanistan for 20 years, and who dramatically left in ignominy just over two years ago. Sadly, it has landed as a low blow that could have dangerous consequences.

Once again, the anniversary of the 11 September 2001 terror attacks reminds us of not only that tragic event, but also two other momentous developments in the history of Afghanistan and the United States: the assassination of the famed Afghan nationalist and progressive Islamist commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, and America’s retaliatory intervention in Afghanistan against al-Qaeda and its Taliban harbourers, which eventually failed, enabling the extremist Taliban to regain power after two decades of fighting. These events entailed massive implications for Afghanistan, the US, the region and beyond.

Al-Qaeda’s terrorist attacks on the US were unprecedented. So too was America’s intervention in Afghanistan. The US action, backed by NATO and non-NATO allies, as the first salvo in what was declared a ‘war on terror’, was aimed at transforming a highly traditional and conflict-ravaged Afghanistan into a stable and secure state with a functioning democratic system of governance.

As a leading commander of the Islamic resistance forces or the mujahideen, Massoud fought the Soviet occupiers and their surrogate communist government in Kabul. Following the defeat of the Soviets and the collapse of their installed administration in 1992, Massoud led his forces in taking power. He did it not for himself but because he wanted the mujahideen groups to establish a viable, progressive Islamist government to ensure Afghanistan’s transformation into a sovereign, independent, self-sustaining and prosperous state.

For his successes, the conservative Wall Street Journal described him, following 9/11, as the figure on whose back the West won the Cold War. More recently, in a detailed study of Massoud’s vision and actions, the renowned British journalist Sandy Gall called him ‘Afghan Napoleon’ in his book under the same title, hailing him as an ardent nationalist and reformist.

Massoud was fully cognisant of the mosaic composition of Afghanistan and the prevalence of ethno-tribal and sectarian traditionalism. Moderate Islam had historically influenced the landscape but had not bridged its social and cultural cleavages. Massoud was committed to instituting a publicly mandated, all-inclusive and united system of governance and shunned any form of supremacy of one ethnic, tribal or sectarian group over another.

Yet, he wasn’t infallible, and nor was he capable of meeting the deep-seated challenges posed by the complexities of Afghanistan and its neighbourhood. His vision for a stable and inclusive nation was seriously challenged, as different forces, backed by the country’s neighbours, predominantly Pakistan, for conflicting regional interests, bid for power. Afghanistan was plunged into internecine conflict, with the capital Kabul bearing the brunt. In the process, all warring parties, including some of Massoud’s fighters, committed massive human rights violations—something that the commander couldn’t prevent despite all his wishes to the contrary.

The rise of the Pakistan-orchestrated, ultra-extremist Taliban from late 1994 brought its own challenges. The Taliban’s success in fighting and buying their way in drove Massoud from Kabul but couldn’t divert him from pressing on with his vision for the country. He regrouped and fought the new phenomenon, ensuring that the Taliban didn’t gain writ over all of Afghanistan and that the first Islamic mujahideen government under President Burhannudin Rabbani remained Afghanistan’s internationally recognised government.

He was, nonetheless, a marked man. He tried to warn the world—and, more importantly, a complacent America—about the rise of terrorism from Afghanistan, but was assassinated by two al-Qaeda agents just prior to 9/11. Al-Qaeda’s attacks compelled the US to intervene in Afghanistan—a country that US President Richard Nixon had described in 1958 as ‘unconquerable’.

Washington’s hunt for Osama bin Laden and its entanglement of Afghanistan’s campaign with President George W. Bush’s wider war on terrorism and promotion of democracy placed Afghanistan on a rocky course of change and development. It prolonged and deepened US and allied involvement in Afghanistan. The war on terror led to the US invasion of Iraq and a shift of American resources away from Afghanistan, and democratisation spawned incompetent and kleptocratic governments under presidents Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani.

These leaders failed the people of Afghanistan, depriving the US and its allies of an effective and reliable partner on the ground. In addition, the US’s lack of understanding of Afghanistan and its neighbourhood meant that it couldn’t pursue an appropriate strategy. In a fashion typical of a big power losing a small war, it too failed the people of Afghanistan. The Taliban and their supporters could not have wished for anything more.

The US and its allies finally decided to extract their forces from an unwinnable war. Based on the infamous February 2020 US–Taliban peace agreement, under the impulsive President Donald Trump, America, along with its allies, started a total troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. They did so in return for nothing—not even a universal ceasefire, let alone a viable political settlement of the Afghanistan conflict.

Afghanistan was offered on a platter to the Taliban and their outside backers. President Joe Biden simply, though very poorly, completed the process, opening the gate for the Taliban to declare their self-styled, ultra-extremist theocratic order under a leadership group many of whose members are still on the UN black list with some wanted by the FBI.

And so the Taliban once again instated their reign of terror, targeting women and others who opposed their oppressive rule. After two decades of liberalist-inclined changes in Afghanistan under the US-led NATO watch, when an educated and well-connected young Afghan generation had begun emerging with hopes for a better future, all those changes were reversed.

Afghanistan is undergoing an unprecedented dark time economically, financially, socially and culturally. It has become a pariah and gender-apartheid state with a massive humanitarian crisis.

The order that the Taliban have sought to institute in the name of Islam is in a class of its own. It is led by leaders and commanders who have been schooled in an extremely narrow version of Islam. The regime’s self-styled brand of Islam is not practiced in any other Muslim majority country. Its actions set it apart even from Iran, where despite hijab restrictions, girls and women can get an education, work and participate in affairs of the state and society at different levels.

The Taliban’s behaviour has been in total contrast to Massoud’s ideal and vision. However, not all is lost. Massoud’s legacy has been taken up by his young but strategically savvy son, Ahmad Massoud, who now leads the National Resistance Front against the Taliban, along with several other resistance groups that have bourgeoned over the past two years. He and the NRF claim to stand for a just and democratic transformation of Afghanistan as a responsible, constructive, multiethnic and progressive sovereign Islamist state.

The NRF’s leadership is based in Tajikistan, but its fighters have been battling the Taliban in hit-and-run guerrilla operations in several north and northeastern provinces. Neither the NRF nor any other resistance forces, such as the Afghanistan Freedom Front and the Afghanistan Islamic National and Liberation Movement, are at this stage materially backed by any outside power. Their capability remains limited, although it is growing as the Taliban’s repressive rule extends.

They lack sufficient coordination and unity. The fight against the Taliban is expected to be long and arduous. It is important to note that for the first time in history an erstwhile terrorist group has reassumed power, in possession of US$7.2 billion worth of arms, including an air force, left behind by the US and its allies.

The Taliban, while lacking in both domestic and international legitimacy, are not a coherent entity. Serious personality and ideological divisions exist among them. On one side is the Haqqani group, led by Sarajjudin Haqqani, who hail mostly from eastern Afghanistan; on the other is the core Taliban group emanating from Kandahar in the south, who include Mullah Baradar and Defence Minister Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, the son of Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar.

The Haqqani leaders have voiced occasional dissatisfaction with the Kandahar-based leadership of Mullah Haibatullah Akhunzada, who is supposedly the absolute amir and commander-in-chief of the regime and who has proven to be as hardline and reclusive as his predecessor, Mullah Omar. In all, the Taliban’s rule and the interests of their Pakistani supporters are not based on firm and enduring foundations, as was the case with previous regimes in Afghanistan.

The Taliban are neither prone to change nor united among themselves to embrace an enlightened Islam. It is imperative for the West to support the anti-Taliban resistance until such time as they negotiate for a nationally and internationally legitimate and participatory system of governance and a sovereign united Afghanistan, with respect for human rights and the rights of women. Whatever the circumstances, the struggle for the soul of Afghanistan is set to continue.

Since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s seizure of power in August 2021, the Afghan refugee crisis, already one of the worst in the world, has intensified. Much attention has focused on Pakistan and Iran, where the largest numbers of Afghan refugees are living, and India’s response to the crisis has been mostly overlooked.

India is one of the largest Asian donors to Afghanistan and its policy and public discourse have focused on its concern for, and ties with, the Afghan people. India’s support has been expressed in wheat and medicine shipments, but the country is hosting significantly fewer Afghan refugees than Pakistan and Iran. The lack of greater help for Afghans seeking asylum stems from both India’s refugee policy and its geopolitical concerns regarding Afghanistan and the region.

India is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and has no domestic legislation outlining the rights of, and protections for, refugees. The Foreigners Act of 1946 governs matters pertaining to refugees, conflating asylum seekers with foreigners who voluntarily enter India. In the absence of a concrete policy, India’s executive branch has wide discretionary powers in determining which refugees are protected, imprisoned or deported.

In addition to Afghans, refugees from China, Myanmar and Sri Lanka form the majority of the 290,000 refugees and asylum seekers that India currently hosts. However, protections are not applied consistently to these various groups. Tibetan refugees persecuted by Chinese authorities have been granted registration certificates and are routinely offered other support. Rohingya refugees, however, face severe discrimination and are often placed in detention centres and deported. Differential treatment of asylum seekers based on their ethnicity or country of origin mirrors concerns about the creation by some Western powers of a two-tiered system of refugee protection.

Without formal state protection, refugees face hurdles in India. Determination of their status is divided between the government and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Only refugees arriving from neighbouring countries directly approach the Ministry of Home Affairs. Refugees from non-neighbouring countries, such as Afghanistan, approach the UNHCR office in New Delhi for refugee status determination. They are then issued a UN refugee card without which they cannot access basic services and programs such as education, healthcare, affordable housing and formal employment. Based on this card, the government can issue residential permits to refugees. However, without a domestic law recognising the UNHCR cards—or providing any official status to the organisation’s operations in India—the rights extended to these card holders depend on the political will of the Indian government.

India has witnessed various phases of the Afghan refugee movement over the years, triggered initially by political instability in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion in 1979 and the first Taliban regime in 1996. The first naturalisations of Afghan refugees, however, occurred more than a decade later, and by 2006, 13 Afghan refugees had become naturalised Indian citizens. Of those, 12 were Hindus and Sikhs. According to UNHCR data, there are currently 19,338 Afghan refugees in India, though that excludes nearly 13,000 Afghan students stuck in India since 2021 and former Afghan military personnel in legal limbo in India.

In 2021, as an immediate response to the influx of refugees after the Taliban takeover, India announced emergency visas for Afghan nationals. However, they are only valid for six months and don’t grant the right to education or private employment in India. Moreover, while 60,000 applications were filed by September 2021, only 200 e-visas had been granted by December that year. The executive’s actions and statements suggest that Hindus and Sikhs from Afghanistan were prioritised for visas over other vulnerable Afghan communities.

India’s broader approach towards Afghanistan is shaped considerably by its geopolitical position. Afghanistan’s place in Indian policymaking has predominantly reflected the India–Pakistan proxy war, exacerbated by Afghanistan’s landlocked status and political instability. Between 2002 and 2021, India was an active stakeholder in Afghanistan’s reconstruction, committing financial resources and crucial public goods and services. Yet India remained absent from the negotiations between the US and the Taliban that led to the Doha agreement in 2020 which facilitated the Taliban’s return to power in 2021. India’s political engagement with the Taliban since 2021 continues to be vaguely administered, with its diplomatic position left ambiguous. The Pakistan factor in India’s Afghan policy has also remained: India continues to highlight terrorism emanating from Afghanistan, particularly Pakistan’s role in abetting terror groups.

Simultaneously on the Indian domestic front, controversial policies amid an increased focus on Hindu religious nationalism led to the enactment of the 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act, a widely debated law that promises protection to persecuted minorities fleeing India’s neighbouring countries, to the exclusion of Muslim minorities. For Afghan refugees, this discriminatory policy meant that India would give preference to Sikh and Hindu Afghan refugees over others, increasing the precarity for Muslim asylum seekers from Afghanistan.

The political discourse in India also projects refugees as security threats, as seen in the fraught debates surrounding Rohingya refugees. There have been several recent calls for reform in India’s refugee policy to incorporate its commitment to international human rights institutions, including the UN Human Rights Committee, the Convention against Torture and more broadly the mandate of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

India’s current trajectory to become a regional and global power and to make a place for itself within the ‘rules-based order’ is also at odds with its refugee policy. It has joined the Global Compact on Refugees under the auspices of the UN General Assembly to achieve an equitable and sustainable solution for refugees. However, the compact is not legally binding, and legal protections for refugees remain unchanged, with routine yet ineffectual discussions surrounding India’s asylum policy.

Managing borders and processes for people seeking asylum is a complicated affair in most countries, yet India needs a clear refugee policy. Despite a stated position that places the Afghan people at the centre of Indian policy overtures, the status of refugees is being left to the mercy of arbitrary political decisions. With India holding the G20 presidency in 2023 under the theme of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (‘One Earth, One Family, One Future’) and with a commitment to a human-centric approach, it’s time for the government to address this gap in its refugee policy.

Originally published 16 April 2021.

The war in Afghanistan has profoundly changed the Australian Army and had a significant impact on the whole defence force.

Around 30,000 ADF personnel served in Afghanistan and 41 died there. The vast majority of them fought and worked with great courage and decency, many living in small, isolated patrol bases in remote valleys with the Afghan soldiers they mentored.

They did not just teach the Afghans to shoot and then send them on their way; they fought, and some of them died, with those Afghan soldiers.

Even when trust was broken with ‘insider’ killings of Australian and other allied soldiers by Afghan personnel who were traitors or disaffected, the Diggers persevered.

Soldiers who ran technical training programs teaching Afghans were immensely proud of the tradesmen they turned out.

Those who built schools and clinics took the same pride in introducing visitors to young Afghan doctors who worked there, tending long lines of sick and injured.

I’ll never forget an ill-judged comment I made to one doctor when I noted that while there was so much physical injury around, his clinic had a mental health room.

The doctor looked at me sadly and said: ‘We’ve been at war for decades. Nearly everyone has lost someone. Everyone is traumatised.’ Sometimes, in quiet moments, his words, and his face, come back to me and I wonder if he has survived thus far, if he’s still working, and whether his devotion to his patients will keep him there if the Taliban take over, or if they’ll simply murder him.

Diggers who built or repaired schools were proud that local kids, especially girls, were being educated there.

There were hope-filled periods when the region around Kabul was calm enough for journalists and other visitors to go to local markets, to roam through shops full of stunning carpets, shawls and cloaks without an armed escort. That was an echo of Afghanistan of the days before the Russian invasion when it was a fascinating, romantic and historical, and surprisingly secular, sojourn on the global hippy trail.

But at the same time, there was another war going on in the mountains and valleys a helicopter ride away, where Australian and allied special forces battled through one dangerous operation after another in a conflict fought in darkness and out of sight of the media and the world at large.

A small minority of them got out of control.

This became a true corporal’s war in which junior NCOs had the authority of kings.

On top of that, some officers were treated with contempt by a small number of NCOs who’d spent endless nights on dangerous operations and who undoubtedly did know more about fighting and surviving than those sent to command them.

There was also a view by many in the regular army that they’d largely been marginalised through a determination to minimise casualties by using the special forces for just about everything.

When concerns were raised about possible unlawful killings, the army ordered its own investigations. What they uncovered was profoundly disturbing. Something had gone badly wrong on the Afghanistan missions—a deep-seated and distorted warrior ethos permeated parts of the SAS and an entrenched culture of impunity had taken hold there.

There were ‘catastrophic cultural and professional shortfalls’ within Special Operations Command (SOCOMD) and ‘corrosive’ friction between the major special forces units, the SAS Regiment and the commandos. Under the pressure of 20 intense rotations in Afghanistan over 11 years, the special forces had become isolated from the rest of the army.

Any examination of how operations in Afghanistan have changed the ADF has to include a reality check on Justice Paul Brereton’s report on alleged ADF actions in Afghanistan. He found a range of atrocities which, had they occurred in Australia, and if they are proven in court, would make the perpetrators some of the nation’s worst serial killers.

The word ‘woke’ has emerged, fairly abruptly, in the Australian language for such events and it’s fired around with abandon by those who disagree with any action taken by anyone trying to do the right thing.

It is ‘woke’, apparently, for senior military officers to be shocked to learn that there’s strong evidence that some Australian soldiers, a small minority, committed war crimes that included killing unarmed Afghan prisoners. And it’s ‘woke’ to object to Australian soldiers wearing the death’s head symbols once favoured by Hitler’s elite killers.

ADF commanders say the decline has been reversed and a restructured SOCOMD is now positioned to implement the Afghanistan inquiry’s findings and to rebuild the trust of government, the defence organisation and the public.

Of all the wars in which Australia has been involved, the Afghanistan conflict was the longest, its intensity and its largely hidden cost reflected in the significant number of veterans who have killed themselves since coming home.

On the positive side, the war taught the army a lot about the necessity for the war fighter and intelligence to be tightly integrated. It led to major technological advances by Australian soldiers and engineers to deal with weapons such as the ingenious improvised bombs, mostly made from diesel and fertiliser, that proliferated there. Those innovations will save lives in wars and peacekeeping missions all over the world.

In this episode, The Strategist’s Anastasia Kapetas speaks to Frances Brown from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace about the lessons from the conflict in and withdrawal from Afghanistan. They also discuss how the United States can work with allies and like-minded countries to promote democracy globally.

A new report from the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group offers a whole-of-nation climate-security risk assessment. ASPI’s Robert Glasser speaks to one of the report’s co-authors, retired air vice-marshal John Blackburn. They discuss Australia’s shortcomings in responding to climate security risks, and what the government needs to do to prepare for the security implications of climate change.

How have Covid-19, natural disasters and coercion affected Australia’s business and trade positioning? Michael Shoebridge and Gill Savage explore this in their ASPI report New beginnings: Rethinking business and trade in an era of strategic clarity and rolling disruption. They argue that this period of disruption provides opportunities for Australia to invest both in areas of need and comparative advantage.