Episode 314: Afghanistan Today: Security Myths, Gender Apartheid, and Global Risk

In this episode, Dominic Bowen and Emily Winterbotham discuss how Afghanistan has evolved since the Taliban’s return to power, challenging simplified narratives around security, terrorism, and international disengagement. Drawing on extensive field experience and long-term research, they examine why Afghanistan remains a critical test case for counterterrorism, regional geopolitics, and global risk management.

Find out more about how the Taliban have reshaped the country’s security landscape since 2021, including the shifting threat posed by ISKP, the limits of Afghanistan as a terrorist hub, and why some regional actors now view engagement with the Taliban as a pragmatic risk-containment strategy rather than an endorsement of their rule.

The conversation also addresses the devastating human consequences of Taliban governance, with a particular focus on what the United Nations has described as gender apartheid. Emily explains how the systematic exclusion of women and girls from education, healthcare, and public life undermines long-term stability, peacebuilding, and state legitimacy -and why inclusive governance remains essential for durable security.

Finally, they explore the role of the international community in Afghanistan’s future, unpacking Western withdrawal, moral trade-offs around humanitarian aid, Russia’s decision to recognise the Taliban, and the lessons policymakers must learn from past hypocrisy, warlord politics, and missed opportunities for inclusive peace.

Emily Winterbotham is the Director of Terrorism and Conflict Studies at RUSI, where she leads work across London, Brussels, and Nairobi on terrorism, counterterrorism, peacebuilding, and fragile states, with a particular focus on Asia, especially Afghanistan and Pakistan. For over 15 years, she has combined desk research and field postings in international policy environments, including a decade working on conflict in Afghanistan. Between 2009 and 2015, she operated in Afghanistan and Pakistan and conducted community-based qualitative work for the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, studying conflict resolution, reconciliation, and pathways for demobilising and reintegrating former Taliban fighters. She also serves as a Deployable Civilian Expert for the UK Government’s Stabilisation Unit. Emily is co-author of Countering Violent Extremism: Making Gender Matter (2020) and Conflict, Violent Extremism and Development: New Challenges, New Responses (2018), and her CVE research addresses the concept of gendered radicalisation and how counter-extremism programs can better integrate gender perspectives.

The International Risk Podcast brings you conversations with global experts, frontline practitioners, and senior decision-makers who are shaping how we understand and respond to international risk. From geopolitical volatility and organised crime, to cybersecurity threats and hybrid warfare, each episode explores the forces transforming our world and what smart leaders must do to navigate them. Whether you’re a board member, policymaker, or risk professional, The International Risk Podcast delivers actionable insights, sharp analysis, and real-world stories that matter.

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Dominic Bowen is the host of The International Risk Podcast and Europe’s leading expert on international risk and crisis management. As Head of Strategic Advisory and Partner at one of Europe’s leading risk management consulting firms, Dominic advises CEOs, boards, and senior executives across the continent on how to prepare for uncertainty and act with intent. He has spent decades working in war zones, advising multinational companies, and supporting Europe’s business leaders. Trusted for his clarity, calmness under pressure, and ability to turn volatility into competitive advantage, Dominic equips today’s leaders with the insight and confidence to navigate disruption and deliver sustained strategic advantage.

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Transcript:

Emily: Keeping the the Western community interested in what is happening and concerned, because yes if you’ve had previous listeners talk about the massive betrayal; I would argue the first betrayal happened in 2001 when we didn’t come in and remove the warlords who had made the Taliban realistic the first time around. And we continued to prop up people who were guilty of mass human rights violations. So the hypocrisy of the international community has been seen and recognized by Afghans for the past 20 years. So we’re remaining interested now and showing that we still do care, even if we are navigating these different policies and funding challenges.

00.39: Elisa Garbil: Welcome back to the International Risk Podcast, where we discuss the latest world news and significant events that impact businesses and organisations worldwide.

00:48: Dominic: And this episode is brought to you by Conducttr. Conducttr software helps you design and deliver crisis exercices, without needing a big team or weeks of preparation. You can create a central exercice library with Conducttr world and you can generate reports that support your governance and compliance requirements. So if you want flexible, realistic crisis exercises that are easy to adopt, then Conducttr is worth a look. And I have a quick favor to ask, before we start today. If you’re a regular listener, please subscribe and follow the International Risk Podcast. It’s the simplest way to support the show, and it helps us reach more listeners who need this content. And my commitment to you is that we’ll keep improving every part of the experience. From our guests, the research and the practical insights we provide. And, if there’s a guest you think we should bring on the podcast, or a risk that you want unpacked, send it through to us,n and I promise we read all of your comments; Please hit the subscribe or follow button now, and let’s jump in to today’s episode.

1:45: Dominic: Hi, I’m Dominic Bowen, and this is the International Risk Podcast, where we speak with leaders and experts about the risks that are shaping our world and what they mean for governments, businesses, and society. And today we’re talking about Afghanistan, and not because it’s a past war, but because it’s an active test case for counterterrorism, for great power rivalry, for migration, and what happens when the international community walks away from a conflict, but the risks remain. Now, Afghanistan is a crisis that everyone tried to walk away from, but really failed in the process. And the Taliban are back in power. Women have been removed from public life and armed groups are gathering strength across the country. And there’s a large amount of international aid still flowing into a country that is largely unrecognized, or the government has been largely unrecognized. So to unpack what’s really happening in Afghanistan and what people misunderstand, I’m joined by Emily Winterbotham. She’s the former director of terrorism and conflict studies at RUSI, and she’s currently a senior associate fellow at RUSI. That’s the Royal United Services Institute, the world’s oldest and the UK’s leading defence and security think tank. Emily’s an extremely experienced Afghanistan analyst, and I’m really excited to hear her thoughts and the conversation we have today. Emily, welcome to the International Risk Podcast.

02:59: Emily: Thank you, thank you for having me. Looking forward to the conversation.

03:02:: Dominic Bowen: Emily, thanks very much for joining us today. And to begin with, I wonder if you can walk us through how your experiences in Afghanistan and Pakistan have really shaped your view of the conflict and the dynamics across the region.

03:15: Emily: Yeah. I think, firstly, I’ve always said that I have had two very distinct lives in Afghanistan. When I arrived in 2009 to 2011, working with Afghan communities, being on the ground, researching the legacies of conflict with a number of different groups. Afghans across three different provinces of Afghanistan and then moving in 2012 to the European Union to work for the EU Special Representative as an advisor. And so being much more in that policy space and living behind you know barbed wire, going roaming around with CPT. So two very distinct experiences, which I think have informed how I see the conflict and the first you know the first thing I think just to emphasize and we can kind of pick up on it is there is always, there we always felt to be a gap between what Afghans would tell me on the ground and you know the real common sense that comes through when you talk to ordinary people in ordinary communities. and then the way that policymakers view conflict. So the local reasons, the local drivers of conflict, the issues of revenge, long-standing issues, tribal issues, things that have gone on for decades, if not centuries, at the international level, at the policymaker level, suddenly being reduced down to, oh good, bad, government Taliban, terrorism, not terrorism, you know legitimate government, which you know clearly obscures the the complexity and and the reality of of conflict in Afghanistan, Pakistan and and elsewhere.

04:46: Dominic Bowen: It’s a really interesting point. You know I’m really blessed. I’ve had about 25 years of living and working in it in a variety of conflict zones. And probably the single lesson that sits with me the most is that it is always so much more complex than what you think, even if you think you know it all. And the other thing is that, really, I know very little about anything. I think I’m well informed. I think I’m well educated. And then I get on the ground and I realize, my gosh, I know nothing. I know nothing about this conflict and the dynamics and the key stakeholders and who’s actually behind the people on the ground. that It’s something that always sits with me.

05:17: Emily:  We used to joke that no one is more informed than someone who’s just been in Afghanistan for a few months because you know the longer you’re there, the less you know.

05:26: Dominic Bowen: Yeah, I think that’s a really good really good analogy. And I think when people think about Afghanistan, I think most people really draw back to probably about August 2021 when the aliban the Taliban retook power. And it was, I think, a big turning point. And I think you’ve been looking at data and managing data you know since before then, right through and until 2024 at RUSI/twenty-four at RUSI Can you talk to us about how you would characterize Afghanistan today when we consider the risk landscape, the humanitarian situation, the regional politics? What are the, sort of things that stand out when you look at the data and the trends in Afghanistan today?

06:00: Emily: Sure. So yeah, I mean, August 21, I guess came as a surprise for everyone. I don’t think it came as a surprise for us, actually. We had set up a program in Afghanistan called Strive, Strengthening Resilience Against Violent Extremism, From around 2019, 2020, various obviously delays, issues, firstly due to COVID, then due to security. And then of course, in 2021, when we had the government collapse. But we had been reporting in programme documents to the European Union, the funder, that one of our major concerns was that the programme would have to be paused or indefinitely closed due to the escalating security situation and the dynamics we were seeing on the ground. I mean, I think July, the flit, the year, the Americans kind of fleeing Bagram almost overnight, that was the real indication that something was going to happen. I don’t think it was a surprise to me that the government collapsed almost overnight. I mean, you know, there are various reasons for that, and we don’t necessarily have to get into them, but obviously there’ve been quite a lot of legwork done in the run-up in terms of negotiations and deals that have been made on the ground between the Taliban and government. And again, going back to that earlier conversation we had, reflecting the fact that the conflict was never government versus Taliban, but it was always a much more integrated web of different alliances and people who have known each other for decades. You know these are not strangers to each other. And so you know that was partly responsible for the ultimate kind of success of the Taliban.  But obviously what we’ve seen since 2021, firstly, I think it’s been quite hard to get accurate information, which is why the program we’ve had has been so significant because we were able to resume operations. And what that did was enable us to have access to data on a monthly basis in terms of what was happening in terms of security, interactions of the Taliban with ISKP, they’re obviously the main sort of terrorist group on the ground, ISIS in the Khorasan province. And then obviously more kinds of general social developments, geopolitical relations. Briefly, and then we can perhaps pick up on the issues that you’re most interested in a security sense, the Taliban have been relatively successful, I think, at containing the ISKP threat. But the risk through ISKP threat has altered. It’s less about amassing large numbers and more about infiltration, spreading through different numbers of cities, operating in the online space, working through universities. And that’s, you know, we’ve published quite a few papers on that. There are still other terrorist groups there. There’s sort of an uneasy alliance. And obviously between Al-Qaeda and Taliban, obviously you’ve got Haqqani. who is who’s got a pivotal role as well. it there are i mean i would say at the moment the threat is relatively contained but kind of bubbling away, and one that the Taliban’s going to have to continue to work hard at. Then if we think about… The geopolitical relations, I mean, they’re still largely isolated. They haven’t seemed to want to kind of run and make do the necessary reforms and capitulate on some of their social policies that have come to in order to gain friends and admirers and supporters. But you know Central Asian states have been relatively pragmatic. They know that they need to work with the Taliban. So we’ve seen kind of improvements of relations there. We’ve seen improvements of relations with India. You know I think India, I’m not quite sure if it’s already got its full embassy up and running, but that was definitely the intention. Russia has obviously formally recognized the Taliban. I think the only country to do so. So slowly but you know slowly and surely, they are working in that regional context. But from a Western perspective, they’re you know they i think relations have not improved and in fact since the international community stopped channeling aid through Afghan institutions in late 2024 has probably declined and then the the key thing obviously is the it’s economic and social impact we see you know widespread poverty increasing unemployment huge numbers of people still displaced and what I think is appropriate, which what the UN has been calling you know probably gender apartheid and a devastating situation we see facing Afghan women today.

09:52: Dominic Bowen: And’s There’s a lot there I’d like to unpack, including the gender apartheid as well as Russia’s recognition of the Taliban. But maybe we can start at the local level. And there’s so many different insurgent groups operating. There’s the Tariq Taliban, there’s Pakistan groups, there’s Uzbek, there’s Tajik. You mentioned ISIS in the Kordofan province. You know There’s al-Qaeda. They’ve all got their presence in Afghanistan. And of course, that was one of the pretexts for the original 2001 invasion because it being a hotbed of insurgency and global terrorism based out of Afghanistan. We are hearing the narrative that security is much improved. And we’ve had guests on the podcast that have talked about the improving security situation in Afghanistan. But how do do you see it? Do you see that the problem is the problem of insurgency? Do you see that as one that is actually improving under the Taliban rule and something that we should be maybe celebrating or is this still very early days and is it really just a matter of one very violent group controlling smaller violent groups?

10:46: Emily: I think the first point is that the threat from Afghanistan in terms of terrorism was always exaggerated, you know, whether that was in 2001 in terms of the rationale for intervention or in the kind of ensuing years. Afghanistan is not the ideal place for terrorists to hang out. It’s not particularly well-connected. Its landscape is quite difficult to navigate. There are many more areas of but in South Asia, Pakistan, for example, where obviously we know that there are a number of safe havens and obviously where Bin Laden was ultimately assassinated. There are other parts of the world which are far easier for terrorists to group and to operate and recruit.  That being said, I think the Taliban have perhaps done a better job than we would have worried about, and perhaps that’s you know reflected in why Central Asia is kind of actually considering working with the Taliban government. But you know these problems, I think, are also underreported. We don’t have as much visibility in terms of what’s actually happening on the ground. whether that’s from, you know, lacking actually intelligence actors operating inside Afghanistan. So the threat is not over. But I think there are other parts of the world which are probably more concerning at the moment.

11:57: Dominic Bowen: I think that that’s really relevant. And we’ll talk about, though I’d like to ask you about the regional dynamics, but I really wanted to also dive into, yeah it’s a really important point about the humanitarian and the human rights side. And you spoke about gender apartheid and the treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan. And we’ve had quite a few guests on the podcast speaking about the impact on women’s education, access to health care, and just their daily lives since the Taliban took over. Now, you’ve done a lot of work on reintegration and conflict resolution. So, you know, I think with that expertise and and your understanding of Afghanistan today, how how do you assess the current impact of these restrictions on women and girls, both, I guess, in the immediate human terms, on the on the individual humans, but also when we look at the longer-term challenge for security and risk management and, I guess, long-term peace and state-building efforts?

12:42: Emily: Yeah, I mean, you know, I think firstly, it’s important to say that it is not that the Taliban came back into power and Afghans women all over the country situation changed. You know, all Afghan women’s situation was drastically different from what they’d had before. The reality is, is that despite 20 years of international intervention, many parts of the country were, you know there would have been Afghan women whose way of life improve and were still subject to very stringent social conservative norms and obviously areas of the country that had been occupied by the Taliban as well. So we know we’re already under the control of you know religious and patriarchal control. However, I think what we have seen since the Taliban came back in is very pronounced. And, you know, on a kind of personal level, when I look at it, it feels almost vengeful. It’s like, you know, 20 years you’ve had these women marching around and taking on policy roles in Kabul and speaking at international conferences. And we’ve had girls going to school and, you know, we’ve had… women going out and voting and doing all of these things. And it’s like you were rubbing our faces in it. So now we are going to remove women from public life. And that is really what seems to be happening, you know, on a kind of daily basis. It’s literally the elimination and obliteration of women from public life. Obviously, massive humanitarian implications of that. Medical, we see we and we’ve got concerns, anecdotal, because again, not there’s not enough data at the moment, but maternal mortality rates are increasing. Ability of women to access healthcare care because women aren’t being allowed to be employed in jobs, therefore you can’t go and visit someone because there isn’t a female doctor or midwife. The education that you mentioned, 80%, think of women not being in educational school. No women in policy roles. And I worked in 2000 and probably 2013. I was working with the Afghan… government on the National Action Plan on UNSCR 1325, which is the resolution on women, peace and security. You know, i’m really talking through with the government why it was significant to have women’s voices on peace and security and the different views and perspectives that women can bring to the table, not only because they have different roles and responsibilities, particularly in a country like Afghanistan within the family, but also the community. But conflict impacts them differently. And if you don’t take in into account the views of both men and women and the views of different ethnic groups, tribal groups, et etc e cetera, et cetera, et cetera, you are not getting a full picture of the actual consequences of what is happening. Now, the Taliban might say, well, that’s fine. We don’t really care about that because, you know, we have decided that that is okay because men can… operate and be authorised on behalf of women. But clearly our evidence and research shows that long-term peace and stability are only brought around by inclusive peace deals. And at the moment, if we think of the this next stage of Afghanistan’s history, the settlement with the Taliban you know now being essentially the de facto authority, without the role inclusive role of of other groups, whether it’s women or different ethnic groups, tribal groups, I truly believe it will be difficult to have long-term stability, not least the fact that you know it will make it very difficult to be able to operate on an international level. Given the conditionalities around aid and the international community that we’ve seen being employed so far.

15:55: Dominic Bowen: And you speak about the international community, and you speak about the really dire situation. And I think, and we’ve spoken about many topics across the history of the last five or six years of the International Risk Podcast, where it’s so clear that your diversity is one of the keys to successful risk management and the pursuit of opportunities. And I think at its most simple form, yes, that includes men and women being and involved in these processes. But you spoke about the international community then. And so I need to ask, while this is going on, why would Russia recognise the official government of the Taliban? Have you got a thesis on what Russia’s hoping to achieve there? Because it doesn’t sound like it’s the best thing for women and girls in Afghanistan in the long-term peace-building efforts. So why would Russia recognise the Taliban as the government in Afghanistan?

16:37: Emily: Look, I mean, I think firstly this sort of jury out in terms of Russia’s approach to women and girls and peace building generally. But Russia has had a very long relationship and role in Afghanistan, you whether it’s under the USSR or more recently. There’s a big Russian embassy in Kabul. I used to go there a lot and play tennis. The Russian ambassador was always, you know, whoever he was, was always very engaged and networked and connected with different Afghans. But I think Russia has seen the current deterioration of relations between Afghanistan and the West. The fact that the government that the West spent so long propping up, funding, manipulating, supporting multiple different successive governments has now collapsed, and there is a new actor in town, and there is a new actor that is vehemently anti-West. Russia has seen that as an opportunity. to position itself to be able to, you know, exert some regional control,  whether that’s vis-a-vis China, the West, it is an opportunity. You know, Russia… it has its own imperial global ambitions. We see Russia trying to exert control in various parts of the Sahel as well, whether it’s through mercenaries or directly. So I don’t see it as surprising that they’ve seen this as an opportunity. I guess the surprising part of it is that they’ve been so visible that you know they’ve been quite prepared to say, we are going to recognize this government. But clearly they see it to their advantage to have working relations with the Taliban and to be seen as a supportive partner in the region. Obviously, Russia and Pakistan also have close relations as well. So I think that dynamic is quite interesting to monitor, particularly since Pakistan and Afghanistan right now aren’t getting along as well as Pakistan perhaps would have hoped, given the strategic depth that it had, you know, it had relied upon having the Taliban. But you know, the other thing I think that’s important to say is that Russia’s concern in relation to Afghanistan and the region has always been around terrorism. And so the Taliban, na again, and we spoke earlier about how complex, you know, conflict is complex, was the Taliban, a terrorist group, an insurgent group, drugs mafia, whatever, it was probably all of those things, but above all, it was always a nationalist terrorist group. So even though there are links with, with Al-Qaeda, it has always had nationalist ambitions and that does not threaten, therefore, other regional actors or countries like Russia and China who are most concerned about terrorism in Afghanistan. So it’s the lesser threat compared to ISKP, which does have regional and global ambitions. Therefore, the priority for Russia is about containment, so containment of the ISKP threat. And if the Taliban is doing an OK job in that, we can kind of you know support you in that.  So I think there’s, yeah, there’s sort of, the risk management that Russia is also employing along with the strategic game that it hopes it may benefit from.

19:14: Dominic Bowen: And how should we be thinking about security when we look at the nearby countries, when we look at the Central Asian states, when, as you mentioned, Pakistan and and India, you know, for example, there’s the significant flow of of people between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the movement of narcotics and these networks that have been long established throughout the region. Now, what does it mean today? And then perhaps what does it even mean for the nearer board like Europe? Are there things that we need to be considering then when we look at security and risk in Afghanistan?

19:39: Emily: I think from a European perspective, let’s start there and work backwards. The threat is pretty much the same as it always has been and in fact may actually be less in comparison to other, more immediate proximity to and give closer geographic threats. From a regional perspective, these countries have always been concerned about spillovers, and whether it’s spillovers of people, weapons or drugs. They will continue to monitor those concerns, and you know, to work on those concerns. I don’t, again, necessarily see this as a marked change from the past. And I think some of the changes we’ve seen within Iran and Pakistan are probably mitigating some of these. There’s been much more resistance, you know, to Afghan populations and forcing Afghans back to Afghanistan. I mean, there are issues about the drugs take trade. Opium, not such a big deal anymore. I mean, it still is continuing. There’s still money to be made from it, but the Taliban ban on opium cultivation has had an impact but amphetamines apparently and i’m no drug expert but easier to produce less easy to detect more easy to transport therefore so those you know flows of of of drugs i’ll definitely want to watch yeah and obviously afghans are turning up in uh as asylum seekers they are a high proportion of the concern we see in the UK around small boats, but they’re not the only ones. And I think, I mean, I was thinking about this earlier. I wonder if a lot of the people flows actually at the moment are Afghans from Iran and Pakistan rather than those coming out of Afghanistan. I think we need to remember that when a country is facing widespread poverty, there is less money to pay smugglers. So, I would hazard that a lot of the people flows we see are actually Afghans who got out in the early years post Taliban takeover, rather than huge numbers of new people coming from Afghanistan. Of course, there will be some, but you know, there are financial and security obstacles, I think, at the moment as well.

21:32: Dominic Bowen: Yeah, thanks, Emily. And I’ll take the opportunity to remind our listeners that if you prefer to watch your podcast, then the International Wist podcast is available on YouTube. So please go to YouTube and search for the International Wist podcast and subscribe to our content to ensure you get our latest videos in your feed. Emily, when we look at the European Union, when we look at the US and their withdrawal, both physically but also financially, from Afghanistan, im I’m wondering about a second chance, if there is a possibility of some sort of a healthy support, some sort of a healthy and productive intervention and to help support and guide Afghanistan back into a healthy direction. We’ve heard from people in Afghanistan about this sentiment of betrayal from the West, that the West has turned its back on Afghanistan after the withdrawal. How do you think we should be looking at the future? And, you know, if you were speaking to a room full of policymakers today, what would you be advising them when it comes to supporting a positive development in Afghanistan?

22:26: Emily: I mean firstly, I don’t think we are anywhere near having a discussion about an intervention in the way that we’ve had previously. I do believe that Donald Trump in recent weeks has been sort of mentioning the potential for the US s to take back Bagram or something from the Taliban to be able to have some sort of… foothold in the country due to you know having and sorry I hope that can be edited out I do believe that Donald Trump’s been talking about you know potentially retaking Bagram so that they can the US can have a strategic location near Central Asia particularly with concerns over ISKP and you know can access to mining exploitation and things but obviously that’s not really a realistic prospect and the Taliban would outright uh reject any deal for for western presence in Afghanistan in terms of where I think the EU, the u k other Western countries should be focusing their efforts. there’s It’s really hard. There’s a trade-off, isn’t there, at the moment between… continuing to provide economic support because you are concerned about a worsening humanitarian crisis and supporting or being seen to support in any way, prop up a government that is committing such violations against its female population, you know, akin to gender apartheid as the UN has been calling for. I think the approach at the moment, which you know a number of Western countries have taken, which is to stop funding the Afghan government or Afghan institutions and to direct funds only through NGOs and international organizations, is probably the right one. There are consequences of that. you know there is a financial black hole, and inevitably there are knock-on effects of the impact for women as well because health centres for example, have had to close and therefore women are affected by that. But aid in that context has always been conditional and I don’t believe we can morally do anything that could allow the Taliban well can at least be supporting the Taliban to continue this gender apartheid. There are clearly still groups of organisations in the country, women who are coming together in a really fragmented grassroots way, who do need support. And we should be cautious about trying to oversee, you know, to monitor these developments and to, you know retain links with the country to understand what those grassroots networks need.  We’ve sort of cut off our nose to spite our face I think sometimes, because some of the counter-terrorism legislation that we brought in counter-terrorism financing legislation means it’s much harder for us to get small amounts of money to nascent grassroots organizations given the kind of obstacles and hoops that they have to jump through to obtain funds. But, you know, staying interested, I think that’s the key challenge. There are so many issues at the moment that distract policymakers. So keeping the the Western community interested in what is happening and concerned, shaming them even because yes if you’ve had previous listeners talk about the betrayal, it was a massive betrayal you know we I would argue the first betrayal happened in 2001 when we didn’t come in and remove the warlords who had made the Taliban realistic the first time around. And we continued to prop up people who were guilty of mass human rights violations. So the hypocrisy of the international community has been seen and recognized by Afghans for the past 20 years, and even by ordinary Afghans. So we’re remaining interested now and showing that we still do care, even if we are navigating these different policies and funding challenges. Remaining open, I think, to conversations with the Taliban. It’s unpalpable, but we should, and I know they are, they are still talking and retaining links, working through other actors, you know, working with regional countries that the Taliban do talk to, not necessarily Russia at the moment, but obviously India. We can have a good conversation with India about… how to deal with the Taliban and sort of you know passing off some through some additional messaging, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, you know, these are countries that have working relations with the Taliban. They also have their own concerns over the way the Taliban have approached women and girls’ education, for example. So there are subtle ways for Western powers and European powers, I think, because we are the ones at the moment who still would profess to support women and girls’ rights actively, even if that can sometimes be viewed hypocritically. But yeah, above all, actually maintaining those connections, interest, and not looking like we’ve just sort of walked away and kind of downed tools altogether.

36:30: Dominic: You mentioned, and it was quite interesting, the hypocritical nature, and I think your argument is quite logical when it talks about how the West worked with many warlords. And when I was in Afghanistan, I certainly had many meetings with quite a few different warlords over the country, and you know, we would have intelligence on them. We would know the good things they were doing, and we’d know some of the less desirable things, the things that lead to what you call hypocrisy. I think the argument that was made at the time and would still be made by many politicians and generals is that, you know, it’s better the devil you know. And yes, this might be a bad guy, but he’s better than the alternative. When we learn and hopefully we learn from how we managed and how we didn’t manage Afghanistan well, and look at future conflicts, how do we make those decisions about where we’re being hypocritical and where we’re trying to do the best with what we’ve got?

27:13: Emily: Yeah, I mean, I would say that, you know, the kind of better argument was not received well by the Afghan people. You know, the research I did on the legacies of conflict, and this is research in Kabul, where were we? Kabul, Bamiyan, Balkh, and Afghans across all different ethnic groups, across all genders, across all ages, were… felt so betrayed that we had made that better the devil you know trade-off because these were people who had abused them in the past, who were continuing to abuse them in the present and were undermining any form of state legitimacy and were therefore directly kind you know contributing to people’s decision to, in some cases, join the Taliban or support or harbor or, you know, definitely contributing to a lack of government legitimacy. So I really do think that was the first fundamental error. We didn’t need to do that. We could have found more interpretation. appropriate interlocutors. We actually should have been much more inclusive from the beginning. There were opportunities to talk to the Taliban in the early 2000s. We didn’t take them. We had a very one-sided, you know, black and white view of the conflict. So, you know, next time around, less hubris, more willingness to take on complexity. Less, I think, rushing in and talking to the people who may be saying the things that we want to hear, but doing something completely different on the ground. Yeah, because I think really that better the devil you know argument really doesn’t. Really doesn’t have any strength when you look at what happened in those first few years from 2001 to kind of 2004 or five, we really could talk to a wide variety of different people and to you know build an inclusive piece, and we totally squandered it talking to people who really didn’t have the best interests of Afghanistan at heart.

28:52: Dominic Bowen: Well, thanks for explaining that, Emily. And thank you very much for coming on the International Risk Podcast today.

28:57: Emily: Thank you, it’s been a pleasure.

29:00: Dominic Bowen: Well, that was a really great conversation with Emily Winterbotham. I really appreciated hearing her thoughts on gender apartheid in Afghanistan, but also the realities of the security and the risk situation in Afghanistan and across the region. Please go to wherever you listen to your podcast. And remember to subscribe, and to, if you enjoyed the episode, please share it with a friend or colleague. This episode was produced and coordinated by Melanie Meimoun. I’m Dominic Bowen, your host. Thanks very much for listening. We’ll speak again in the next couple of days.

29:26: Elisa Garbil: Thank you for listening to this episode of the International Risk Podcast. For more episodes and articles, visit theinternationalriskpodcast.com, follow us on LinkedIn, Bluesky, and Instagram for the latest updates, and ask your questions to our host, Dominic Bowen. See you next time!