Post 2014 Security in Afghanistan: Kunduz a Microcosm

Abstract

This Thesis focuses on post 2014 security in Afghanistan. It particularly focuses on Kunduz province security after 2014 and the fall of the Kunduz city to the Taliban on in September 2015. Supposing the resurgence of Taliban in Kunduz after 2014 NATO (German forces) withdrawal can be serve as a microcosm of security in Afghanistan, the Thesis argues that the factors which were involved in the fall of Kunduz City to the Taliban are main causes for deterioration of security in Afghanistan after 2014. The findings are expected to give enough evidence to the argument that the thirteen years of state-building and democracy building in Afghanistan have not been successful because the main factor in the long period of conflicts in the country have been ethnicity. The state building process in the country, started with the Bonn agreement, mainly focused on distribution of power along ethnic lines. The new government structure defined in the 2004 Afghan constitution constructed on a strong central government with extensive authority for the president, failed to address the ethnic divisions in the periphery which has undermined the establishment of state institutions. In Kunduz, the weakness of state institutions to substitute the existing power structure in the local level, has created public dissatisfaction with the state a created a social gap which the Taliban have managed to use it successfully to gain public support and challenge the Afghan National Security Forces. Particularly the findings will elaborate an understanding of the factors that undermine security in the country after NATO withdrawal.