The Foreign Policy of the Taliban

Overview

Winston Churchill once observed that the people of Germany had done enough for the history of the world. A similar observation could appropriately have been made about the Taliban movement in Afghanistan. The shattering events of a bright September morning in New York and Washington DC highlighted even for those who had never heard of the Taliban that something dreadful was at loose in the world. For those who had followed the rise of the Taliban, and the flourishing under their protection of networks such as Usama Bin Laden's Al-Qaida, there was in most cases a deeper poignancy: the sense of having been unable to avert a slide to disaster. For in both the constitution of the Taliban, and the detail of their foreign policy, the warning signs were written in prominent script. It is with these signs that this study is concerned.