US intervention in Afghanistan and the failure of governance

ABSTRACT Several factors militated against successful counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, but the real failure was a failure of governance. The US and its allies created a central government which proved extremely powerful at resource extraction while dismally weak at service provision, Development aid, the opium economy and the lack of political accountability created new forms of highly pernicious corruption, akin to those in many African states. The result was that legitimacy of the Afghan government was eroded, thereby setting the scene for a Taliban victory. The article concludes with three lessons from Afghanistan for the future.