Corrupting or consolidating the peace?: The drug economy and post-conflict peacebuilding in Afghanistan

Abstract

In 2011, Afghanistan was responsible for 90 per cent of the world’s opiates. No other country has ever had such a dominant position in their global supply. However, in 2002 the opium economy was not seen as a priority of the newly-installed Karzai regime or its international supporters. The US-led intervention that overthrew the Taliban was primarily concerned with counter-terrorism and political consolidation. Coalition forces initially turned a blind eye to poppy cultivation and trafficking, fearing that counter-narcotics (CN) efforts would upset the fragile political coalition that had been forged to pursue the ‘war on terror’. But between the Bonn Agreement of December 2001 and the Afgha..