The phrase ‘think global, act local’ originated in the environmental movement. It can be a glib substitute for serious attention to large problems. But it can also be a telling rejoinder to the temptations of top-down, big-government solutions. I believe it is relevant to our challenge in Afghanistan.
The potential problems emanating from that country are global in scope. Afghanistan is at the centre of international terrorism and the drugs trade. But the solutions need to be local — in tune with the needs and circumstances of the people. This was brought home to me on a trip there in July.
I decided that my first visit as Foreign Secretary outside Europe should be to Afghanistan, followed by Pakistan. The reason is that what has happened in Afghanistan, and what will happen there, directly affects British interests and British people in profound and direct ways.
Everyone should know that al-Qa’eda prepared its assault on the West — of which the horror of 9/11 was only the most atrocious example — in the valleys and hills of eastern Afghanistan. Now we know too that most British terrorism investigations trace back to the training camps just across the border, in western Pakistan. A 1,500-mile border that the Taleban and their al-Qa’eda associates cross and recross, despite both governments’ efforts to control that lethal traffic.
So our direct interests are at stake in tackling the terrorist threat. But so is our word. At Bonn, in December 2001, and again in London, in January 2006, the world made a pledge to the long-suffering people of Afghanistan: after nearly 30 years of unparalleled suffering at the hands of the Soviet Union, the warlords, and then the Taleban, we would help them all — women as well as men — to set up a state of their own, free from oppression.
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