$1 Trillion in Minerals Discovered in Afghanistan

$1 Trillion in Minerals Discovered in Afghanistan [Daniel Foster]


The New York Times reports that a team of U.S. Defense Department officials and geologists have discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped iron, copper, cobalt, gold, lithium, and other minerals scattered throughout Afghanistan — enough to “fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.”

E.g.:

— An internal Pentagon memo predicts Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” an important component of high-end batteries.

— “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant,” said CENTCOM Commander Gen. David Petraeus.

— An senior adviser to the Afghan minister of mines predicted the deposits would “become the backbone of the Afghan economy.”

As it stands, Afghanistan’s $14-billion economy is propped up almost entirely by foreign aid and the illicit opium market, and it still faces 35-percent unemployment and a per capita GDP that ranks 219 in the world, between Mozambique and the Central African Republic.

The from-scratch development of the heavy industrial infrastructure it will take to develop the mineral veins will take years or even decades, and will likely spark heavy competition between firms in the U.S. and those in other regional powers like Russia and China. (In the Times story, undersecretary Brinkley also wonders, perfectly irrelevantly, whether the resources can be “be developed in a responsible way, in a way that is environmentally and socially responsible.”)

And of course, the discovery of lucrative natural resources inside Western Asia has not historically proven to be an unmitigated good. As the story notes, it could spur the Taliban to fight even harder to regain power, and could amplify the graft that already pervades government:

The corruption that is already rampant in the Karzai government could also be amplified by the new wealth, particularly if a handful of well-connected oligarchs, some with personal ties to the president, gain control of the resources. Just last year, Afghanistan’s minister of mines was accused by American officials of accepting a $30 million bribe to award China the rights to develop its copper mine. The minister has since been replaced.

Endless fights could erupt between the central government in Kabul and provincial and tribal leaders in mineral-rich districts. Afghanistan has a national mining law, written with the help of advisers from the World Bank, but it has never faced a serious challenge.

“No one has tested that law; no one knows how it will stand up in a fight between the central government and the provinces,” observed Paul A. Brinkley, undersecretary of defense and leader of the Pentagon team that discovered the deposits.