Content warning: the current situation in Afghanistan (2021)
Is there anything people outside Afghanistan can do to address the worsening situation in Afghanistan? GiveDirectly-style aid to Afghans seems like not-an-option because the previous Taliban regime āprevented international aid from entering the country for starving civilians.ā (Wikipedia)
The best thing we can do is probably to help resettle Afghan refugees, whether by providing resources to NGOs that help them directly, or by petitioning governments to admit more of them. Some charities that do this:
No One Left Behind, which focuses on resettling Afghans who helped the US military
I donāt have a good sense of how much impact donations to these charities would have. The US is already scrambling to get SIV applicants out of Afghanistan and into the US and other countries where they can wait in safety for their applications to be processed. On the margins, advocacy groups can probably advocate for this process to be improved and streamlined.
Also, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan is a teaching moment for improving institutional decision making. Biden appears to have been blindsided by the rapid Taliban insurgency:
āThe jury is still out, but the likelihood thereās going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely,ā Biden said on July 8.
(I thought that it might take 30 days for the Taliban to completely take over Afghanistan, whereas it happened over a weekend.)
I donāt have anything to add, but I think youāre right. Itās very hard to hear the āAmericans matter more than other peopleā implied or stated in the article comments.
I agree with you that situations like the current one in Afghanistan might be among our most impactful issues, but:
If you wanna talk about iidm, Iād rather think more about how to make failing states in developing countries more viable and functional than improve US government decision-making. Tbh, idk if US decision was a matter of a judgment mistake: Bidenās recent statements seem to show that he doesnāt really regret the decisionāthat the unwillingness to keep troops in Afghanistan dominated the risk of having Taleban back in power.
Iām not sure thereās still any low-hanging fruit concerning Afghanistan, but we still have many other poor countries in civil war where there is still hope of getting a viable democratic regimeālike Haiti and Chad. Perhaps it could be useful to have a theory of what features make a ānation building effortā viable (like in East Timor) or notāand also what can be done to mitigate the harm caused by another government collapse. My current pet theory is that these efforts only have a winning chance when the corresponding country is afraid of being invaded by another foreign power; otherwise, the nation building effort is likely to be regarded as a colonial invasion.
Even though I can only think of Talebanās return as catastrophic, I wonder if their recent displays of willingness to engage in international relations is only to get recognition for the new regime (implying weāll be back to middle age again in a few months), or if theyāre actually aiming to modernize a little bit (even if just to prevent another future invasion).
Content warning: the current situation in Afghanistan (2021)
Is there anything people outside Afghanistan can do to address the worsening situation in Afghanistan? GiveDirectly-style aid to Afghans seems like not-an-option because the previous Taliban regime āprevented international aid from entering the country for starving civilians.ā (Wikipedia)
The best thing we can do is probably to help resettle Afghan refugees, whether by providing resources to NGOs that help them directly, or by petitioning governments to admit more of them. Some charities that do this:
International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), which advocates for refugees in general and has gotten grants from Open Phil
No One Left Behind, which focuses on resettling Afghans who helped the US military
I donāt have a good sense of how much impact donations to these charities would have. The US is already scrambling to get SIV applicants out of Afghanistan and into the US and other countries where they can wait in safety for their applications to be processed. On the margins, advocacy groups can probably advocate for this process to be improved and streamlined.
Also, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan is a teaching moment for improving institutional decision making. Biden appears to have been blindsided by the rapid Taliban insurgency:
(I thought that it might take 30 days for the Taliban to completely take over Afghanistan, whereas it happened over a weekend.)
And in general, the media seems to think the US drawdown was botched. USA Today has called it āpredictable and disastrous.ā
I donāt have anything to add, but I think youāre right. Itās very hard to hear the āAmericans matter more than other peopleā implied or stated in the article comments.
I agree with you that situations like the current one in Afghanistan might be among our most impactful issues, but:
If you wanna talk about iidm, Iād rather think more about how to make failing states in developing countries more viable and functional than improve US government decision-making. Tbh, idk if US decision was a matter of a judgment mistake: Bidenās recent statements seem to show that he doesnāt really regret the decisionāthat the unwillingness to keep troops in Afghanistan dominated the risk of having Taleban back in power.
Iām not sure thereās still any low-hanging fruit concerning Afghanistan, but we still have many other poor countries in civil war where there is still hope of getting a viable democratic regimeālike Haiti and Chad. Perhaps it could be useful to have a theory of what features make a ānation building effortā viable (like in East Timor) or notāand also what can be done to mitigate the harm caused by another government collapse. My current pet theory is that these efforts only have a winning chance when the corresponding country is afraid of being invaded by another foreign power; otherwise, the nation building effort is likely to be regarded as a colonial invasion.
Even though I can only think of Talebanās return as catastrophic, I wonder if their recent displays of willingness to engage in international relations is only to get recognition for the new regime (implying weāll be back to middle age again in a few months), or if theyāre actually aiming to modernize a little bit (even if just to prevent another future invasion).