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The Alienated Frontier: Why the United States Can’t Get Osama bin Laden

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Abstract

Since the Russian-supplied Afghan army overthrew progressive President Daud in 1978, the nation has endured the long Soviet-Afghan war, the Taliban, and the arrival of U.S troops. These military actions have only heightened the historical alienation of the Pashtun tribes who overspread the long-contested border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. These are the people who are almost certainly sheltering Osama bin Laden. The Alienated Frontier is a centuries-old problem that must be solved if we are to win the war on terror, and solving it will require rebuilding the infrastructure, developing alternatives to poppy cultivation, and solving the “Pashtunistan” question. The capture or elimination of given individuals will achieve little if the conditions that allow radicals to thrive are not addressed

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South Asia as a region has been facing the challenges of transnational terrorism and extremism – be it religious fundamentalism, separatist or left-wing – for more than three decades. The irony, however, is that escalation of terrorism in South Asia along with its political division has made it easier-said-than-done to have meaningful regional collaboration on the issue. The purpose of this paper is to nd out the factors, which hinder e ective counter-terrorism cooperation in South Asia. Based on the “Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT)”, this paper argues that the security structure in South Asia is uniquely characterised by historical mistrust among its members, specially its bipolar con ictual power structure. It further argues that the nature of con ict formation in South Asia has facilitated the rise and sustenance of transnational terrorism. Finally, it contends that extreme reliance on the zero-sum notion of security by South Asian states prevents the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to emerge as an e ective counter-terrorism organisation on a regional basis.
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