The relationship between illegal financial flows and state-level violence is present in conflicts around the world, and is especially pronounced in Afghanistan. In particular, the country’s thriving drug market based on the opium trade has proven to be a major economic factor that has been fueling the ongoing conflict. In this episode of Root of Conflict, Aishwarya Raje and Mwangi Thuita speak with Gretchen Peters, Executive Director of the Center on Illicit Networks and Transnational Organized Crime (CINTOC). Drawing on her role at CINTOC as well as her decades-long career as a writer and journalist, Gretchen talks through why the political economy of the War in Afghanistan is so poorly understood, and the connections between criminal networks, weakened institutions, and breakdown into disorder.

This podcast is produced in partnership with the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts. For more information, please visit their website at www.thepearsoninstitute.org

Access the transcript here: https://thepearsoninstitute.org/news-and-media/podcast