Why Afghanistan’s 20-Year Republic Collapsed?

DID Press: Two leading scholars, speaking at an analytical forum titled “Sociology of Resistance and Accommodation in Afghanistan,” argued that the collapse of Afghanistan’s 20-year republic was the result of a combination of proxy politics, entrenched corruption, and a widening class divide. They emphasized that the U.S.-led state-building project lacked a genuine social base, making any externally engineered resistance or governance model unsustainable.

The event was organized by the Rahel Association and the Scientific Association for Asia–Pacific Regional Studies at the University of Tehran. The speakers—Dr. Sayed Askar Mousavi, senior researcher at the University of Oxford, and Dr. Bahador Aminian, former Iranian diplomat in Kabul—examined the deeper structural causes of the republic’s rapid collapse.

Dr. Mousavi, outlining a theoretical framework of “resistance” and “accommodation,” argued that proxy resistance movements dictated by external powers are inherently destined to fail. He noted:

“The Afghan army and security institutions, funded and commanded from abroad, lacked public legitimacy. People never saw the republic as their own.”

Dr. Aminian attributed the collapse not to surface-level factors but to the absence of nation-state formation. He described the republic as an “implant” with no societal foundation, saying that reliance on the United States hollowed out the concept of sovereignty:

“Lavish lifestyles of elites in palaces, contrasted with widespread poverty, made citizens view the government as their enemy. How can a society be expected to defend a corrupt structure in its moment of crisis?”

The discussion concluded that the U.S. state-building project in Afghanistan created an imported and dependent system that could neither generate internal legitimacy nor withstand the Taliban’s offensive—ultimately paving the way for the republic’s sudden collapse.