When challenged with widespread corruption, European Union (EU) institutions prioritized the norm of solidarity with the United States (US) and a norm of partnership with the Government of Afghanistan (GOA). This was not without consequence for other aspects of EU engagement. With absorption capacity greatly exceeded, and corruption fuelling an insurgency, insecurity throughout Afghanistan grew. This had a counterintuitive effect on EU- level relations with Afghanistan. As corruption and insecurity took hold, EU Member States would start to pass on more responsibilities to EU institutions, to counter growing fatigue with the ongoing conflict. As a result, having marginalized norms of EU integration at the start of the conflict, EU institutions would be drawn further into a relationship with Afghanistan and take on new responsibilities. Importantly, the EU increasingly had to operate in a strategically selective context, whereby it not only had to navigate Afghanistan, but demands and previous responsibilities of Member States, along with the larger transatlantic relationship with the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). All while remaining a secondary partner in all these relations. The complexity of being in this position is reflective of how norms and the interaction capacity of global international society have evolved in the early 21st century.

The complexity of having to negotiate the norms of global international society was compounded by the problems accumulated from previous contextual dissonance. As a marginalized partner in the ongoing conflict, EU institutions were sceptical about casting counterterrorism operations within military norms. EU actors had also been sceptical about empowering the Northern Alliance and embedding neopatrimonialist norms within the institutions of state and the decision to invade Iraq. Yet, the EU was being asked to do more and work around the accumulation of problems that had been generated throughout the conflict. This required going beyond the blank slate development policies as EU institutions became more active in Afghanistan in the second decade of the conflict. This started with a contribution to Afghan security and the establishment of the European Union Police Mission in Afghanistan (EUPOL) in 2007. Indeed, the EU became more engaged in offering bilateral assistance, political dialogue and peacebuilding efforts from 2007 to 2017.

The return of the Taliban in August 2021, while abrupt, was not an unforeseen phenomenon. Although European Union (EU) policy makers refused to accept the scenario in advance, the Taliban's return was the culmination of a protracted process marked by the gradual expansion of their influence and control over territories in Afghanistan. The withdrawal of United States (US) troops was merely a tipping point. Still, the Taliban's progression was observed and documented over several years, indicating a complex interplay of regional, political and military dynamics. It was also the result of the failures of the Government of Afghanistan (GOA), which lacked legitimacy and fundamentally was unable to tackle corruption, improve security and provide political stability within the country. The 2019 presidential election exemplified this. Unfolding amid a challenging backdrop and delays, voting commenced on 28 September 2019. The election was marked by the lowest voter turnout in modern Afghan history, highlighting the profound impact of electoral insecurity on political participation. This low turnout was a clear indicator of the challenges and apprehensions faced by the Afghan populace, reflecting concerns over safety and the credibility of the electoral process (SIGAR 2021). With President Ghani's constitutional tenure expiring four months prior and the US already engaged in negotiations with the Taliban in Doha, there were suggestions of postponing the elections and establishing an interim government until the peace talks concluded. Despite these circumstances, President Ghani proceeded with the elections, a move widely seen as an effort to bolster his international legitimacy rather than in the best interest of the Afghan state (Cookman 2020). Following prolonged disputes and delays, the election results were finally announced in February 2020. President Ghani was re- elected with 50.64 per cent of the vote compared to Abdullah Abdullah's second place, 39.52 per cent of the vote (BBC News 2020).

February 2020 was the same month President Trump announced the unilateral decision to withdraw US troops following the conclusion of the Doha Agreement. Rather than Afghanistan being prepared for this announcement, the election result threw Afghanistan into political turmoil. The election further undermined the legitimacy of Afghan political institutions. Abdullah rejected the outcome and sought to establish a parallel government.

In addressing why European Union (EU) policy in Afghanistan failed, this research has aimed to shed new light on the EU's external action. To do this, it has not used a traditional International Relations theory, but sought to challenge many of the working assumptions of approaches that prioritize presentism, ahistoricism, Eurocentrism and state- centrism. This has required a commitment to methodological pluralism. Guiding this research has been a sense that three key theoretical commitments not only matter, but that they can help explain the social world and in doing so identify why EU policy failed. The first, using Buzan and Little's framework, is that in trying to understand international relations, world history matters and can provide an important lens for looking at world politics today. Rather than accepting contemporary logics and structures, it is important to put them within a larger historical context and see how they developed in different place and at different times. This certainly had the benefit of allowing the chapters of this book to recontextualize Afghanistan and reject notions that it is in any way a ‘blank slate’. Notions that anywhere can be considered a tabula rasa do not just resonate with neocolonial ways of looking at the world, but as this book has shown, they have enormous potential to damage and endanger the world around us. The Taliban may well physically want to eradicate Afghanistan's pre- Islamic history, but Western powers should not commit the same mistake by eradicating history from their psychological consciousness. It is in this context that Chapter 1 necessarily challenged the profound misperception of Afghanistan as a ‘blank slate’, a perspective that disregards the rich tapestry of Afghan history and norms shaped over millennia. This fallacy has perpetuated a misunderstanding and underestimation of Afghanistan's complex sociopolitical fabric and its people's agency.

The second key theoretical commitment has been in explaining how norm circles, norms and practices help us explain the social world. This has not only been applied to Afghanistan, but as the narrative unfolded, as a point of entry for explaining EU, United States (US) and other actors’ actions at multiple levels of analysis.

As Afghanistan gained its independence in the early 20th century it joined a growing number of decolonized states in the international system. Indeed, while it is commonplace to refer to modern states as the dominant unit of international relations, it is important to reflect that in 1914 there were only 44 states. Prior to the First World War colonies, dominions and protectorates characterized much of the global international system. By 1930 this had increased to 64 states, and as waves of formal independence took hold this grew to 107 in 1960, 148 in 1978, and over 190 by the turn of the new millennium (Buzan and Little 2000, 265). In this respect, Afghanistan gained the status of an independent state comparatively early in the global process of decolonization. Conversely, in the context of world history, Afghanistan's independence as a modern state is a novel phenomenon. Nevertheless, as Buzan and Little identify:

The perception of outward uniformity has allowed traditional International Relations theory to attempt to ‘close the historical box’ on these decolonized states. However, in Afghanistan, gaining the formal status of a modern state did not suddenly eradicate the tensions between desert norms and sedentary norms that had developed over the previous millennia. Statehood, and the centralization of power that this implies, did not eradicate the heterarchical norms of tribal republics. On the contrary, in fighting for Afghan independence, many ‘village states’ began to question the imposition of power and hierarchy by the ruling elite that had come to rely on their mobilizations of resistance. The rise of Afghan national consciousness in the 17th century had fused with practices of resistance in the 18th and 19th centuries, and unsettled questions of political legitimacy.

To understand the European Union (EU)'s path to being involved in Afghanistan's development, it is essential to contextualize its growing role in Afghanistan. Conterminous with EU marginalization, Ambassador Dr Klaus- Peter Klaiber was appointed European Union Special Representative (EUSR) in December 2001. Under a political mandate, Klaiber sought to support the new interim government, ensure the rights of women and minorities were upheld, fight the trafficking and production of drugs and ‘convince Afghanistan's neighbours that their interference in this process was unwelcome’ (Klaiber 2002). Under an economic mandate, the EUSR's role was to represent European- level interests and reassure Afghanistan that European cooperation would be sustained over the long term. Following an international conference in Tokyo, the EU pledged USD 1 billion in humanitarian aid over the next five years, making it the largest donor at the conference and continuing its humanitarian role from the 1980s and 1990s (Klaiber 2002).

With the EUSR based in Kabul, Klaiber would often need to explain the EU's role and the nature of its action, which was often misunderstood. Before the Bonn Agreement was enacted, the EUSR attempted to persuade the interim Afghan Authority that various political measures should be adopted. Ambassador Klaiber detailed that early on, the most important of these was ‘impressing the importance of a Human Rights Commission, a political assembly, a judicial commission to consider the new constitution and a new legal system’ (Klaiber 2002). Klaiber was able to lobby EU Member States for a more active political role rather than simply making financial contributions (Gross 2009a, 2009b). Yet, with Germany taking responsibility for training the Afghan police force, British counter- narcotics efforts, and French leadership establishing a constitutional committee, this was unheeded. In addition, the EUSR was to act as a voice for Afghanistan in Europe and ensure that Afghanistan did not slip down the political agenda of Member States. The EUSR's ability to speak with ‘one voice’ was especially helpful in furthering international coordination efforts and European integration, both of which were needed given that the EU was a marginalized international actor in a crowded and complex environment dominated by the United States (US). By the time Klaiber left the role of EUSR in June 2002, the EU predominantly remained a humanitarian actor with limited influence.

In August 2021 the Taliban, an ultraconservative Islamic fundamentalist group, recaptured the Afghan capital of Kabul after being removed from power 20 years earlier. This was a poignant symbol of the failure of Western powers in Afghanistan. Having been international pariahs when they emerged in the 1990s, the Taliban came to rule Afghanistan and formed a close connection with al Qaeda, the terrorist organization responsible for thousands of deaths in New York, Washington, DC and Pennsylvania on 11 September 2001. Triggering a military response, the Taliban were quickly removed by a United States (US)- led international coalition with the support of many Afghans, who tacitly supported the overthrow of the Taliban regime. Spread across a landmass twice the size of Germany, Afghanistan's population of 35–40 million found themselves under foreign occupation, even if the reach of foreign troops was inhibited by Afghanistan's mixed geographical terrain. What started as a counterterrorism operation soon evolved into a more ambitious plan to rebuild an Afghan state and transform it into a stable functioning democratic system that would eliminate the possibility of the country being used as a sanctuary for terrorists in the future.

As the US, and increasingly the European Union (EU) and its Member States, sought to stabilize Afghanistan through economic development and transformational governance, they found themselves facing a growing insurgency.

Contemporary assertions that Afghanistan could be treated as a ‘blank slate’ uncomfortably echo 19th- century imperialist assertions that ‘Afghans do not have a history’. These reverberations raise questions about historicity and the need for sociohistorical inquiry, but also whether Western attitudes and discourses towards Afghanistan have significantly changed across three centuries. Overt norms of European imperialism may have formally ended, but the idea that Afghanistan and its people can be stripped of their history has a long afterlife. It is within this context that European Union (EU) policy makers’ assertions that they engaged with Afghanistan as if it were a ‘blank slate’ should not be seen as neutral, but rather as part of an attempt to diffuse EU norms.

Although EU policy makers have openly stated that they proceeded on the basis that Afghanistan is a ‘blank slate’, it is worth unpacking what is meant by this (Hassan 2023). At conceptual level, it has meant proceeding with EU external action on the basis that the tumultuous history that has shaped Afghanistan's present can be overlooked. At a practical level, it has meant prioritizing technical and managerial models embedded in EU external action, which are designed to create more efficient and stable sovereign states. These models exist primarily in the sphere of development and democracy assistance and are perceived as universally applicable even as they emphasize normative commitments to democracy, the rule of law and gender equality. These models are often portrayed as scientific and ahistorical because they are elevated to the status of being ‘universal’ in appeal and application. Yet, multiple studies have outlined that the EU's ‘one size fits all’ approach, and the unreflexive way EU external action has sought to promote its own model, is based on Europe's historical experience and political practices (Bicchi 2006; Börzel et al 2008; Börzel 2022).