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I have a hard time agreeing with the central premise here. The article states that the Taliban had a protection scheme (possibly legitimate, possibly a racket)
by cutchin 5y ago
I have a hard time agreeing with the central premise here.
The article states that the Taliban had a protection scheme (possibly legitimate, possibly a racket) going on to effectively tax all trade through their regions and that made them a lot of money. I can believe that.
But calling that the "real economic prize" seems to miss the point. There was so much trade happening because of the tens of billions of US dollars flooding into the nation. If you take away all that money, you are left with a lot less economic activity to tax, and are probably dealing with customers and suppliers who can't afford nearly as much protection money.
If there was a true economic prize, it's the foreign aid coming in which will likely dry up soon. There are no major international shipping routes through Afghanistan (I think! see my note below), so without the foreign money they're left skimming off the top of trade through a poor developing nation, which doesn't seem like much of a prize at all.
However... the article states this : "Even before their blitz into the capital over the weekend, the Taliban had claimed the country’s real economic prize: the trade routes — comprising highways, bridges and footpaths — that serve as strategic choke points for trade across South Asia." I wish they'd elaborated more on this - are there some desirable routes going through Afghanistan that nations in the region might like to use for trade?
- imtringued 5y agoYeah sounds about right. How did billions in foreign aid get squandered? Well, tons of middlemen (among them the Taliban) took their cut until nothing was left.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoThe thing is, you profit more from a trade route when more trade flows. This happens with the rule of law, and with infrastructure development. The Taliban could grow this golden goose, or they could strangle it. I'm leaning toward predicting "strangle".
- ianai 5y agoI don’t see much trade opportunities from looking at a map- unless India or China have a desire for a route through there with someone else. Possibly for oil. Another meme is they’re a resource for rare earths. What people forget is the US has plenty of rare earths - if people want it enough.
- redis_mlc 5y agoThere was a superficial article posted on HN earlier this week about rare earths there. But it's not really the rare earths that are valuable - it's all the other metals. That region has tin, which is actually rare and supplied the Bronze Age, as well as other metals in enriched deposits that make mining lucrative.
- lenkite 5y agoCombined import/export trade with India is ~1.5 billion USD per year. Not much but still significant for Afghanistan. "Federation of India Export Organisation expressed concern that in coming days dry fruit prices may go up due to the turmoil in Afghanistan. India is importing around 85 per cent of dry fruits from Afghanistan."