Twenty years later, a fractured world

n a post-9/11 world, four geopolitical contests are playing out. In Afghanistan, all strands intersect

Reports that representatives of six countries — Pakistan, China, Russia, Qatar, Turkey, and Iran — were invited to the formation of the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan perhaps best capture the long-term geopolitical repercussions of the post-9/11 era. The complex global landscape that marked much of the past two decades has started to assume greater clarity. Of particular importance is the concatenation of four regional geopolitical contests across the Eurasian landmass. Recent developments in Afghanistan have affected them all.

The first, in the Western Pacific, has long featured a rising China on the one hand and the United States (US) and its Asian allies on the other. Flashpoints have included the Korean Peninsula, East China Sea, Taiwan Strait, and South China Sea. This dynamic has shaped negotiations between the two Koreas, the strength of the US-Japan alliance, scenario-planning around a potential Taiwan Strait crisis, and China's building and militarisation of artificial islands. But while tensions continue along what is commonly referred to as the first island chain, US-China competition is now playing out on a global scale.

SKIP