Deconstructing Afghanistan -- Council on Foreign Relations

Meanwhile, Afghanistan's economy remains a basketcase, with "levels of poverty, hunger, ill health, illiteracy, and gender inequality that put [the country] near the bottom of every global ranking," writes Barnett Rubin in this CFR Special Report. To reverse these downward trends, experts say a strong, effective state must emerge where none traditionally had existed. "Delivery of services is the primary means of gaining broad popular respect," while "development aid is still one of the major assets the central government possesses," according to this August 2006 CSIS report. The Afghan government must also rein in the growing drug trade. Roughly 87 percent of the world's heroin poppy is produced in Afghanistan, Harriet C. Babbitt of Hunt Alternatives Fund told CFR last November.