Afghanistan? Devolving into chaos. Not likely.

IMAGE: TRENCHES (click here) CARVED IN THE HILLSIDE BEAR TESTIMONY TO A PREVIOUS GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BY SOVIET ENGINEERS AT THE SITE OF ONE OF THE WORLD'S LARGEST COPPER DEPOSITS, 35KM SOUTH OF KABUL, IN AFGHANISTAN. THE AFGHAN GOVERNMENT SOLD MINING RIGHTS TO A CHINESE STATE OWNED COMPANY AS PART OF A $3BN DEAL IN2008. IT IS THE LARGEST FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN AFGHANISTAN, BUT MINING, DUE TO START IN 2013, HAS BEEN DELAYED 12 MONTHS WHILE ARCHEOLOGISTS EXCAVATE A SERIES OF ANCIENT BUDDHIST MONASTERIES, AND A BUDDHIST MINE ON THE SITE. (JEROME STARKEY/FLICKR)

$1 Trillion is a lot of money. Warlords and corruption along with the poppy drug culture awaits. Getting the soldiers out of the way seems to be a difficult task though.

By Alan W. DowdTuesday, August 13, 2013

After more than a decade of war and nation building, (click here) members of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan are heading for the exits. Although what the ISAF will leave behind is better than what was there in 2001, Afghanistan remains a battered land. However, the resources Afghanistan’s land holds — copper, cobalt, iron, barite, sulfur, lead, silver, zinc, niobium, and 1.4 million metric tons of rare earth elements (REEs) — may be a silver lining.

U.S. agencies estimate Afghanistan’s mineral deposits to be worth upwards of $1 trillion. In fact, a classified Pentagon memo called Afghanistan the “Saudi Arabia of lithium.” (Although lithium is technically not a rare earth element, it serves some of the same purposes.)...