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How the heroin trade explains the US-UK failure in Afghanistan

Alfred W. McCoy

The Guardian, 2018

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In a recent speech, US President Donald Trump vowed to bring the long war in Afghanistan to an end. But as historian Alfred W. McCoy explains, American military might can do little to address what's really fueling Afghanistan’s recurring cycles of insurgency and civil war. In a fascinating account tracing the history of Afghan conflicts, from the 1979 Soviet invasion to the present, McCoy illustrates how the rise and fall of Afghanistan's warring factions is inextricably linked to their ability to promote and control the opium trade.

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Throughout Afghanistan’s past four decades of conflict, the party that controlled the production and trade of opium usually maintained the upper hand.
During Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, CIA-backed guerillas stood their ground by cultivating opium in Afghanistan and Pakistan's fertile borderlands.
Tax revenue generated from the cultivation and trade of opium enabled the Taliban to take control of Kabul in 1996, and provided an important source of income thereafter.

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Alfred W. McCoy is Harrington professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

How the heroin trade explains the US-UK failure in Afghanistan

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