Taliban insurgents took Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul on 15 August, cementing the end of President Ashraf Ghani’s Western-backed government and leading to scenes of chaos at the city’s airport. Millions of vulnerable Afghan citizens and foreign nationals are now urgently in need of aid and resettlement.
In the days leading up to the fall of Kabul, the New Statesman analysed the consequences for Afghanistan and the world. As the fallout from the Taliban’s victory continues, further NS coverage will be collated on this page.
The Afghanistan withdrawal was another scandalous failure by Boris Johnson
By Martin Fletcher
A spectacularly damning new report by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee cuts through the Prime Minister’s lies.
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Rory Stewart interview: Why Afghanistan marks the end of liberal interventionism
By George Eaton
The former cabinet minister on why there was no need for the US to withdraw from Afghanistan, why Joe Biden is “continuity Trump” and what the UK must do now.
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Podcast: The fall of Kabul, with John Simpson
By Jeremy Cliffe, Emily Tamkin
The World Review podcast discusses Afghanistan’s history of rapid takeovers, the failings of the US and its allies, and what life is like under Taliban rule.
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Afghanistan’s plight and its contested future are a reassertion of the brutal realities of geography
By Jeremy Cliffe
The Taliban takeover could spark a contest for influence between regional powers like China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan.
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The fall of Kabul has left an intellectual void at the heart of British foreign policy
By Stephen Bush
The UK’s withdrawal from Afghanistan was ultimately decided by Washington, and the government was powerless to stop it.
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The Taliban’s new reign of terror
By John Simpson
The US retreat ensured a victory for the militant group. Despite talk of moderation, a creed of savage misogyny will now shape Afghanistan’s future.
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Leader: Biden’s great betrayal
By New Statesman
The US president may plead that the Afghans are a faraway people to whom he owes nothing – but he could yet rue betraying them.
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The Afghanistan crisis shows Europe cannot wall itself off from the world
By Ido Vock
As migration linked to conflict and climate change escalates, the EU will need to rethink its approach to refugees.
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Why Joe Biden is wrong to say that Afghans did not fight for themselves
By Ben Van Der Merwe
Nearly 70,000 Afghan soldiers and police, and 47,000 civilians died in the 20-year conflict.
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Why Tories are in despair over Boris Johnson’s handling of the Afghanistan crisis
By Simon Heffer
Conservatives are stuck with a leader incapable of taking important decisions and who is held in contempt by his Western peers.
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The Taliban has taken lessons from the global jihadist movement
By Shiraz Maher
A dangerous and empty rhetoric of moderation has helped jihadist groups across the world endure.
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After the Afghanistan withdrawal, the West will soon learn “troops out” has consequences
By James Bloodworth
Voters in the US and Europe may have had enough of “forever wars”, but there will be no escaping the impact of America’s retreat into isolationism.
Anna Moneymaker/ Getty Images
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Afghanistan Diary: The fall of Kabul was predictable – if you were there
By Bruno Maçāes
Living in Afghanistan’s capital the week before the Taliban captured the city, Bruno Maçāes found a reality at odds with US intelligence.
Shakib Rahmani, AFP via Getty Images
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The US’s retreat from world affairs presents tough choices for the UK
By Stephen Bush
Joe Biden is following Barack Obama and Donald Trump in seeking to detach his country from Europe.
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Joe Biden passes the buck over the Afghanistan crisis
By Emily Tamkin
An unrepentant US president blamed Afghans for the Taliban’s victory.
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The Taliban’s swift takeover of Afghanistan exposes the UK’s abandonment of refugees
By Anoosh Chakelian
As Boris Johnson fails to say how many Afghan refugees the UK will save, “Global Britain” yet again turns away from the world.
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What the Taliban’s victory means for Afghanistan and the world
By Ido Vock
The repercussions of the fall of the Afghan state will be felt for years to come.
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Joe Biden needlessly abandoned the Afghan people – and Britain stood idly by
By Tom Tugendhat
In the worst foreign policy failure since the Suez crisis, the UK has desperately lacked the speed and decisiveness required.
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How much did the Afghanistan war cost the US?
By Aisha Majid
Official estimates show the war cost $1trn but unofficial figures suggest the real figure was more than double that.
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The Afghan government’s collapse is a humiliation for the United States and Joe Biden
By Ido Vock
The US president’s insistence that the Taliban would not retake Afghanistan was disastrously complacent.
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Diary: Witnessing the last days of Ashraf Ghani’s Afghanistan
By Lynne O’Donnell
As Taliban forces enter Kabul, foreign correspondent Lynne O’Donnell reports on the horrors following in their wake.
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In Afghanistan, a reviled president is being exposed as powerless
By Bruno Maçāes
The Afghan state is not so much collapsing before our eyes as revealing itself as a fiction.
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Will the US withdrawal from Afghanistan come to haunt Joe Biden’s presidency?
By Emily Tamkin
The rapid resurgence of the Taliban extends a deep history of American betrayal and error.
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What the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan means for the rest of the world
By Stephen Bush
One consequence will be a more volatile international stage and a greater threat from jihadist terror in the UK.
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Our indifference to the fate of Afghanistan’s people may become a source of national shame
By Stephen Bush
The Taliban’s recapture of Afghanistan will be one of the dominant stories of the next few months.
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The graveyard of empires: Why American power failed in Afghanistan
By Adam Tooze
In the 1990s the Taliban exploited and took charge of a country eviscerated by war with the Soviet Union. Will it do the same again today?
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