CIAO DATE: 03/2011
June 2010
Center on International Cooperation
Drug production and drug trafficking are effects as well as causes of political instability. They flourish under weak states and sustain that weakness by financing insurgency and warlordism and by intimidating or corrupting the officials of enforcement agencies and security forces. Afghanistan is a primary instance of this complex of social and political pathologies. Since drugs problems are linked to deficiencies in security and governance, it might seem that “counter-narcotics” (CN) policies—efforts to shrink the drug traffic— necessarily contribute to improvements in political stability. But this need not be, and generally is not, true. In particular, it is not true in Afghanistan today.
Resource link: Drug Production and Trafficking, Counterdrug Policies, and Security and Governance in Afghanistan [PDF] - 568K