Misunderstanding Ethnicity in the Afghan Conflict

Abstract

After the conflicts in Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Chechnya, the war in Afghanistan is being explained in terms of the supremacy of ethnicity. The solution, the UN is aspiring, seems plausible: if representatives of all ethnic groups can be brought together into one government, the 23-year war in Afghanistan will end. But such a solution bears the danger that by linking political office and ethnicity the conflict in Afghanistan will be stabilized and even intensified.