ABSTRACT
This chapter reveals the impact that US policy and bureaucratic politics had on enabling such circumstances. It examines the US's approach to combating Afghanistan's drug trade (counter-narcotics), which centred on eradication and interdiction. The chapter assesses US efforts to construct Afghanistan's legal system. Finally, there is a discussion of the vexed issue of democracy promotion in Afghanistan, which includes US attempts to facilitate a centralized model of national governance. Narcotics have been a significant presence in Afghanistan since the 1500s. Insecurity, favourable geography, poor economic circumstances and a weak state combined to facilitate a lucrative drug trade. In 2002, despite a ban on cultivation and trade of opium from the nascent Karzai government, the opium trade expanded exponentially. Poppy production involved vast networks, which stretched from the individual farmer to upper echelons of government. The scale of Afghanistan's drug problem in the twenty-first century is well-known: 'no other country had such a dominant position in the global supply of Opiates'.
