Collateral Benefits’ and the ‘International Community’: discursive realignment after the fall of Kabul

This illustrated chapter offers an analysis of the use of the concept ‘international community’ as it was employed, after the fall of Kabul, by a variety of transnational social actors. The term, usually suggesting an objective, reputable body of transnational forces, has long been common currency in diplomatic circles. It is also replicated in the lingua franca shared by NGOs, the UN, academic institutions, think-tanks, and military formations. The positive value is carried by the reassuring word ‘community’, whereas ‘international’ refers to the global constitution and reach of the collective. The chapter examines the political machinations that inflected the various uses of an apparently positive and 'progressive' phrase, as the West made its calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan.