As Washington looks away from Kabul, Moscow and Beijing are leaning in. Beijing has maintained dialogue — without formal recognition — with the new Afghan government to sustain its investments and border security. Russia, on the other hand, was the first nation to formally recognize the Taliban’s government, promising incoming investment and additional avenues for cooperation.

Alongside external relations building, the Taliban are also contesting with attacks and militant activity from nonstate actors (NSAs) like ISIS-Khorasan (IS-K) and Tehriki-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which number in the thousands and continue to recruit via online campaigns. Their efforts have contributed to Afghanistan’s 78% increase in NSA attacks from 2024 to 2025. When American troops withdrew in August 2021, the US didn’t just leave Afghanistan — it left behind a vacuum now being filled by powers with starkly different values and ambitions.

Why the US must re-engage

The US must re-engage with Afghanistan for three key reasons. First, complete disengagement has allowed China and Russia to rapidly expand their influence in a strategically important country that connects Central and South Asia to the Middle East. Second, turning a blind eye to NSA activity in Afghanistan is allowing groups like IS-K, who have a history of attacks against the US and the West, to grow their power and online influence unchecked. Finally, the US has a moral obligation to support the Afghan military contractors and other allies left dangerously behind, whom it had previously promised safe passage.

Russia, which formally recognized the Taliban in July 2025, said that while its recognition will not involve a military presence, it will yield economic and development results “soon.” As the sole country to recognize the government, Russia may receive preferential treatment when applying for energy and development projects, including for roads, mining and hydro dam construction. This relationship may provide Moscow with potential new energy markets, from which it is suffering due to international sanctions in response to its military actions in Ukraine.

While less overt, China has also warmed its relations with Afghanistan’s Taliban. China has now received the new Afghan Ambassador to China, allowing it to lend support to existing projects like China Metallurgical Industry’s (MCC’s) Mes Aynak Mine and engage in humanitarian diplomacy, such as its support for those affected by the floods in Herat and the earthquake in Kunar.

China’s reasoning for continuing its relationship in Afghanistan is twofold. First, it wants to maintain border security regarding extremist Uyghurs from the Xinjiang province who found sympathy with IS-K’s cause. Subsequently, such extremists have used the Wakhan border as a means to reach Afghanistan from China to train with the groups. Upon joining, some militants have spread Uyghur-language propaganda that threatens China with attacks, prompting Beijing to maintain its relationships with willing partners and build military bases along the border, such as the one in Tajikistan.

Secondly, China has existing and new investments within the country that need to continue churning profits, including the Mes Aynak Mine and the Amu Darya oil extraction agreement. If China disengaged with the Taliban, other investors would surely scoop up the remnants and claim the profits as their own, robbing China of future opportunities. 

Though both Russia and China have applauded the Taliban’s efforts to combat and stifle extremist terrorism activity from within the country, data tells a different story. In January 2025, the UN Security Council identified IS-K, operating mainly in Afghanistan, as the most dangerous affiliate of the Islamic State.

While IS-K’s increasingly deadly attacks have been decreasing in number amidst a reported “funding crisis,” groups such as TTP are alive and well, with rising attack numbers and support from the Afghan Taliban. According to the National Terrorism Index, TTP was ranked as the fastest-growing group in 2024 with a 90% increase in attributed deaths, doubling its numbers from the previous year.

Furthermore, Central Asia jihadist groups, such as Jamaat Ansarrullah (JA), aka Tajiki Taliban, are opening camps to train and recruit in Afghanistan alongside TTP, using the same terrain whose skies were once dominated by US drones. Ironically, the new camps opened by TTP and JA are tacitly supported by the Afghan Taliban, with the government providing “logistical and operational space and financial support” according to the UN. Despite evidence that the Afghan Taliban is supporting TTP and JA, both Russia and China continue to support its counterterrorism narrative. 

Finally, the US has a profound moral responsibility to support the Afghan people, especially those who fought alongside our military. Afghans eligible for special immigrant visas (SIVs) — 50,000 of whom are still awaiting approval — risked their and their families’ lives to advance the US’ mission in Afghanistan for over two decades, only to be abandoned and left in danger in their own country or in legal limbo in neighboring nations.

The US invested over $2 trillion in Afghanistan — not only in military operations but also in building institutions, schools and infrastructure meant to foster stability and democracy. This immense investment was not merely financial — it represented a promise to the Afghan people that America would stand by them in their pursuit of peace and self-determination. To withdraw entirely after such a long and costly engagement is to neglect that promise and undermine the moral foundations of US foreign policy. Moreover, the alliances and partnerships forged during 20 years of collaboration cannot simply be discarded; they are the result of shared sacrifice and mutual trust.

Re-engaging with Afghanistan is not just a matter of strategic interest but of ethical duty. America’s credibility as a global leader depends on its willingness to uphold its commitments and to act with compassion and integrity toward those who stood beside it in times of war.

How can the US engage with Afghanistan without recognizing the Taliban?

The most common and legitimate critique of re-engagement with Afghanistan is the issue of recognizing the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. While that is off the table for most policymakers, there are various ways in which the US, via the US Mission to the UN, the Department of State and the Department of War, can and must engage with international organizations, other nations and Afghan citizens.

Firstly, the US Mission to the UN can and should support the UN Human Rights Council’s resolution, introduced by the European Union, to establish an investigative body monitoring human rights abuses in Afghanistan and gather information on possible perpetrators to bring justice to the victims. The body is set to mirror the UN’s International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) on crimes committed in Syria by the Arab Republic post-2011.

The US can support the new unit by efficiently responding to requests for evidence in its possession and assisting with providing relevant information to investigations. Because the US had such an extensive presence and intelligence awareness in Afghanistan, its military can likely assist with investigations.

Additionally, if legal frameworks do not yet exist to support such collaboration, the US should work to adopt relevant frameworks with assistance from the new UN investigative unit. The US’ engagement with the unit will reinstate trust in its commitment to international law, human rights and multilateral cooperation, all of which are currently in question.

Furthermore, while the US cannot directly engage in counterterrorism efforts with the Taliban against IS-K and similar groups, it can coordinate with local partners, such as Tajikistan and Pakistan. Tajikistan, which shares a 843-mile border with Afghanistan, has largely resisted cooperation with the Taliban and increased its investment in border security after the instability from August 2021.

The US Department of War, whether independently or through NATO, should engage with Tajikistan and Pakistan to support their counterterrorism efforts and engage in capacity building and intelligence sharing to deplete the capabilities of groups like IS-K, TTP and others. If the US allows Afghanistan to once again become a breeding ground for terror, how long before the threats come knocking — again — at America’s door?

Finally, while the US may not be able to directly invest in Afghanistan, nor engage diplomatically with Taliban officials to compete with China and Russia, nor conduct on-the-ground counterterrorism operations, it can support the Afghan people within the US and in the diaspora.

The Department of State should continue to rapidly process SIVs by re-opening the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts (CARE) center to support the immigration of former Afghan military contractors who are stuck in hiding. Unfortunately, the Trump Administration closed CARE in July 2025, despite 300,000 pending cases, further depleting hope and allies’ trust in our security promises.

In addition to reopening the CARE center, Congress should pass the long-stalled bipartisan Afghan Adjustment Act (S.2327), which would address the immigration issues many Afghans in the US are currently facing. Promises made should be promises kept, and returning to our original promise to provide these non-citizen patriots with safe passage to the U.S. would offer a moral lifeline to the administration.

By stepping back from Afghanistan, the US surrendered both the moral high ground and strategic leverage it once held to its geopolitical rivals. Today, terrorist groups exploit the power vacuum, while competitors like China and Russia shape the future of a region that America spent decades and trillions of dollars trying to stabilize. The time has come to ask not whether the US should re-engage — but how soon it must engage.

[The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and not of any other entity.]

[Kaitlyn Diana edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.