Afghanistan: do the math

Why is Afghanistan proving so tricky for Nato forces? This article from Open Democracy suggests that the answer is simple: blame it on "youth bulges". The argument can be boiled down to this: Young males + no job opportunities = war.

In the coming decades, close to 500,000 Afghani males will reach fighting age each year. Almost all of these young men want to prove themselves in the traditional warrior spirit of their homeland. Since 1945, every Afghan father who has retired from the battlefield has left his unfinished fighting to three or four sons. Almost none of these sons can find a legal job, i.e. in opium-free agriculture or within the army and police units financed with western money. But aid measures continue to provide better food, education, and medical care than ever.

This is a marvellous humanitarian achievement. Yet, no combination could be more explosive. Peace activists promise that the victory over hunger will also bring victory over war, and triumph for democracy. Youth-bulge research, however, shows again and again that when hunger is not an overwhelming issue and jobs remain scarce, the killing starts in earnest. Why? Because humanitarian measures have made millions of sons stronger and better educated. It is easy to multiply rice bowls and textbooks. It is impossible to do the same with careers. Moreover, for bread, people will beg; for positions in society, they will fight. And fighting offers a tempting choice for some 350,000 angry young men out of the half million coming of age every year.

Robbie Millen

Comments

[Philip Monroe]

I still can't figure out why the pharmaceutical companies of the world haven't made an industry from buying Afghanistan opium and making legitimate medicines from them. This would theoretically solve the problem of illegal heroin exports, would create businesses for the farmers in Afghanistan, and provide high quality medicines. Is it because the Afghan warlords don't want a legal trade? Or does it have something to do with pharmaceutical companies not wanting to do business with Afghan farmers for some unknown reason.