The U.S. has clearly and squarely lost the war in Afghanistan after 16 years, thousands of casualties, hundreds of billions of dollars spent on a directionless, endless conflict. So, what about the vacuum of power to exist in Afghanistan when the U.S. finally withdraws its forces completely from Afghanistan; well there are numerous possibilities but one of them more possible than the others; the Russian intervention in Afghanistan. So, what factors are driving Russia’s coming war in Afghanistan; its security and geopolitics. This article will look into both. 

SECURITY 

If Russia was really a bear, the Central Asian region would literally be its underbelly mainly for its strategically important location and more recently the rise of the vicious terrorist group IS in Afghanistan under the banner of ‘Khorasan Province’. The IS-K in Eastern Afghanistan is mainly made up of splinter groups of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan which sought shelter in Afghanistan after they were defeated by the Pakistani Military from the FATA region, this particular faction of the IS-K was hit by the U.S. MOAB strike in the Nangarhar province and has recently been involved in intense fighting for the control of Tora Bora complex and has faced numerous drone strikes as well; however there is a little known branch of IS-K which is active in the Northern Afghanistan which experts say is gearing up to wage a campaign of terrorist attacks in Russia and is being enabled by the United States and its surrogates in Kabul. This claim; none other than the Russian government has been reinforced by intelligence reports confirming that this rather less known branch of IS-K has not been targeted by the United States & Afghan forces. This revelation has obviously rung alarm bells in Moscow and they are reinforcing their Military base in Tajikistan; a country that borders Afghanistan for cutting down reaction time in an event of a massive attack in Russia by IS-K which warrants a Military response. Judging by the recent attacks in St Petersburg, the Russian security concerns in Afghanistan aren’t over-blown or unjustified and these concerns have already resulted in the Russian state seeking close communication with the Afghan Taliban; the enemy of my enemy is my friend indeed, or at least that is what the Americans are telling everyone these days. In my assessment; the Russian state has already placed deterrence in place and it would not hesitate to swing into action in Afghanistan should the IS-K succeed in conducting a spectacular terrorist event in Russia.