Commerce always comes back to the old places

From American Digest 

“Revenue streams. More than at any time in a century, money is what we count — and what counts. It means social standing. It means winning. And who controls Afghanistan, controls great sums of money.

“Picture the three great basins of civilization: Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and the Iranian plateau. Picture a massive, craggy rock wall dividing them. Afghanistan owns two doors in that wall. Southern spurs of the ancient Silk Road ran through that land. Part of why Pakistan’s military government spun up the Taliban in the first place was likely to clear the highways for long-distance trade. After 2001, customs dues — or bribes for allowing drivers to dodge them — poured into the coffers of the strongmen who controlled the main crossings (clockwise from the south: Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-i Sherif, and Jalalabad). Now the Taliban gain access to that revenue.”

 

https://www.sarahchayes.org/post/failing-states