Chicken and Egg

Good discussion, despite the crappy headline, on the opium challenge in Afghanistan.  The US is no longer eradicating opium, which will make the US popular not just among the opium farmers, but also among the allies, as eradication is deeply unpopular amongst the farmers.

The article addresses the central question--does insecurity lead to more opium or opium lead to more insecurity.  Hard to tease out the direction, but the correlation is clear enough.  Contested provinces have far more opium problems than ones that are much more secure.  But eradicating the crop is likely to lose hearts and minds.  The idea now is that increasing security will ultimately lead to less of an opium problem.

The article addresses many of the dilemmas that come up, as the opium problem, like the related problem of corruption, raises all kinds of difficult trades and challenges of sequencing--what to do first.

There is some good news--the overproduction of poppies means that the crop now is only a few times more profitable than the alternative crops, which might make switching a possibility.