The strategic threats and options for the countries of South Asia altered in the 1990s. The possibility that the international community might have a decisive role in shaping a peace in Afghanistan disappeared in April 1992 with the fall of Kabul's communist regime. A good possibility exists that, even while Afghanistan may recede quickly in importance for most of the international community, if left to their own bloody devices, regional states are likely to continue to find a stake in Afghan civil strife and the war's outcome. Just as conflict along ethnic and tribal lines inside Afghanistan could have implications for Pakistan, the danger of exporting the conflict or linking up with fighting in neighboring states also increases. Direct intervention by external powers in the struggle among Mujahedin groups and others in a post-communist Afghan state seems highly unlikely. Pakistan's port of Karachi is probably the most desirable sea outlet for expanded trade routes by the new republics.