Challenges of the New Silk Route Initiative (NSRI) for Afghanistan

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Abstract

This paper argues that, to end the fourteen-year conflict in Afghanistan, the United States came out with a novel idea under the banner of a “New Silk Route Initiative” for conflict resolution and the empowerment of Afghanistan. The purpose of this program was to better integrate Afghanistan with South and Central Asia after 2014 by reinforcing the Ancient Silk Route, first known as the ‘Asia roundabout’ or the ‘bridge between South and Central Asia’. However, this paper asserts that the initiative for Silk Road revival is hard to realize, due to inextricable political, security, and technical challenges. The paper is an attempt to highlight all of these challenges which have contributed to the project’s slow progress. The authors further suggest that these challenges are not unique to the New Silk Route Initiative, but rather are common across all initiatives and development projects which aim to integrate Afghanistan with the rest of the world.