Alarms over Afghanistan as a future ‘threat’ are irrational
But poverty, climate stress, and instability make the people who live there, and the strength of any new government, vulnerable.
Alan Richards is Professor Emeritus, Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz. With John Waterbury, he co-authored “A Political Economy of the Middle East.” Until 2000, he also taught economics at UCSC, Harvard, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the American University in Cairo. He worked with the UN and USAID on development projects in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, the West Bank & Gaza, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, Sudan and other countries.
But poverty, climate stress, and instability make the people who live there, and the strength of any new government, vulnerable.