A State in Limbo: Afghanistan, Warlords and International Intervention (1979-1992, post-2001)

Abstract

This thesis examines approaches taken towards warlords and militias during the current U.S.-led intervention in Afghanistan and that of the Soviet/Najibullah period analysing their impact on key state formation dynamics and state-building efforts. Through a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis, the study finds that while the current intervention has seen its warlord and militia strategies produce generally negative results, the past Soviet intervention can arguably claim some partial successes. Though these partial successes provided an “exit strategy”, they did not aid in the state-building efforts or regime stabilization goals that had been Moscow’s initial and primary goals.

The study also point to the problematic omission of actors and social groupings, such as warlords and militias, in state-building theory, and shows how security goals as typically addressed in state-building need not be synonymous or conducive to the primitive accumulation of force that spurred dependency relationships in past state formation.