LIGNET.com

The coming year will be pivotal for Afghanistan and Central Asia. The drawdown of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) coupled with the advent of a new government in Kabul will likely lead to greater instability in the country and the region generally.

Diminishing U.S. and NATO influence in Afghanistan will encourage other actors, such as Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran, to more forcefully promote their interests in the region.
As ISAF forces have departed, Taliban violence has increased and insurgent areas of operation have spread throughout the country. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has gradually been distancing himself from the United States and building a new framework to ensure the survival of the government that will succeed his own later this year.
In 2011 the United States began to reduce its military presence in Afghanistan from a post-surge peak of about 100,000 troops to a small training force of fewer than 10,000 projected for the end of 2014. At the beginning of the year there were just over 35,000 U.S. troops and 19,000 other ISAF forces remaining in the country.

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