Kabul has fallen, what's next?

The story of the American occupation of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan ended with almost the same film shots of helicopters leaving the roof of the American embassy as 45 years ago in Saigon. Nothing has formally changed, but for the United States, this repetition of history will have the most tragic consequences, which, undoubtedly, should be used.

The Taliban movement, which just seven weeks ago controlled only five provinces of the country, took the capital yesterday and accepted the surrender of the Afghanistan government. The President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, fled, although ten days ago he "swore on his mother's life" that he would never do it. According to reports, he first flew to Tajikistan, and then to Oman.

The United States does not want to accept its former protege for reputational reasons, because his presence on American soil will indicate too much openly the depth of America's military and political defeat.

For the same reasons, the European Union does not want to grant asylum to Ghani. Brussels already has too much friction with Washington in order to commit to this as well. In addition, European politicians are not without reason afraid of the negative consequences of such a step on the part of the Taliban.

The Afghan society is extremely clannish. Ghani is not just a former president of Afghanistan, he is still the leader of one of the influential Pashtun clans – the Ahmadzai. So, wherever he finds refuge, the threads of clan confrontation will stretch there.

It is very easy to assume how the Taliban can "react" to such a development of events. Especially considering the number of Middle Eastern refugees in Europe and the scale of opportunities for their ethnic and religious diasporas.

The European Union categorically does not want to get involved with this problem, because it understands the inability to successfully cope with it on its own, and is also aware of the inability of the United States to provide any effective assistance in solving it. Washington speaks passionately about allies' obligations only when allies should help it, and immediately opts for "friendship is one thing but business is business" as soon as the situation develops the other way around.

The reaction of the Central Asian countries is even more indicative. The refusal to accept the fugitive Afghan president by the countries of the region is no longer dictated by the prospects of possible changes in relations with the United States. It demonstrates the obvious recognition of the unconditional superiority, so to speak, of the authority of the Taliban over the reputation of the world hegemon.

This means the formation of a deep geopolitical vacuum of power not only in Afghanistan itself, but also throughout Central Asia, from the Russian border with Kazakhstan to the Pakistani port of Gwadar in the Gulf of Oman, and from the Indian-Pakistani border in Kashmir to Istanbul.

And nature does not tolerate emptiness. Any vacuum is always filled by someone. If there isn’t an external force powerful enough and equally ruthless in its dissent, the free place is occupied by a new emerging civilisation. Or a modified old one, but retaining the fundamental differences from those who previously competed for this place.

So this is exactly the process that is taking place in Central Asia right now.

The West has gone bankrupt in its claims to domination. The speed with which the United States lost control over the seemingly long-ago and firmly defeated by them Afghanistan clearly shows that the American hegemony completely rotted two or even three years ago. Everything was kept solely on the careful external varnishing of the facade in the media and American speechwriters.

China has neither the desire nor the ability to extend its dominance to an "unconventional" region. Beijing has economic plans for Afghanistan, but their implementation presupposes the absoluteness  of the preliminary independent development of suitable conditions. There is no question of accelerating this process with the bayonets of the PLA.

In this regard, Russia turns out to be the main country interested in preserving the buffer zone at least within the framework of Central Asia. But to what extent we have the ability to do this is still an open question.

So, there is need to prepare ourselves for the activation of the process of forming a Caliphate in Afghanistan. What it will eventually become - a Taliban, an ISIS or frankly "jihadists" one - is now just becoming a key issue of our time.