Geopolitics
Syria’s Future: Another Afghanistan in the Making?
As Syria teeters on the brink of another civil war, rival powers and internal factions vie for control in a fragmented nation facing a grim future.
The history of geopolitics then appears in a strange labyrinth, forcing us to look for parallels from nations, from which we then need to rethink historical precedents. The case of Syria – battered by over a decade of war, foreign interventions, and fractured governance – raises a critical question: Is Syria destined to become another Afghanistan, another geopolitical ‘loser’ left to the chaos of permanent instability?
The Afghanistan Parallel: A Template of Destruction
Afghanistan’s modern history is tragic tale of foreign invasion, proxy wars and state collapse. International players created the Soviet invasion in the 1980s and then the U.S.-led war on terror in the 21st century which ended up with the nation as a hollowed out chessboard. Filling the internal vacuum left once foreign powers withdrew was extremist groups and warlords. Afghanistan became a loser in terms of geopolitics – perpetual need of aid, lean on sovereignty, and the heavy hand on weak institutions – this became the…
