Afghan Migration

Fascinating article from a British-based analyst, Dermot Rooney: http://www.wapentakes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/2016-Newsbrief_May_Rooney.pdf

A few highlights:

  1. “…war alone cannot account for the vast number of Afghan migrants or the great distance they are travelling.”
    1. “Globally, up until 1960, the ratio of refuges to fatalities in conflict zones was below 5:1.”
    2. “…in 2015 there was an almost unprecedented 50 as asylum applicants for every civilian killed.”
    3. “Whereas in 1979 over 90% of the Afghan refugees travelled less than 500 km and cross one border, now more than 90% travel over 5,000 km to seek asylum…”
  2. “There are now 1.3 million internally displaced Afghans, with the total increasing by 400,000 a year.”
  3. “The pull of economic opportunity plays a large part in the decision to migrate.”
  4. “In 2015, the population of Afghanistan was 32 million.”
    1. “…it is nonetheless obliged to import enough wheat to feed 10 million people…”
  5. “…Afghanistan’s population will pass 40 million in ten years.”
    1. “the natural growth rate of 2.3% a year added 700,000 to the Afghan population in 2015.”
    2. “Unless there is a dramatic improvement in the economy and security in that time, 16 million will depend on food aid…”

 

This entry was posted in Afghanistan, Insurgency & Counterinsurgency by Christopher A. Lawrence. Bookmark the permalink.

About Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience. ... Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation. ... His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) , The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019), The Battle for Kyiv (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2023), Aces at Kursk (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024), Hunting Falcon: The Story of WWI German Ace Hans-Joachim Buddecke (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024) and The Siege of Mariupol (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2024). ... Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

One thought on “Afghan Migration

  1. This is old news. Prof. Huntington predicted this 20 years ago, Syrian and Afghan migration waves due to population growth (peak in the 80s and 2000sends) and insufficient economic development.
    The internet and smart phones are the tools for organizing such an exodus over vast distances and we are not talking about the poorest classes of their respective societies, since they cannot afford such a journey.

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