THE DISCIPLINE OF GOVERNANCE:

Two months after the terrorist group seized control of Afghanistan, fighters who have spent the past two decades as insurgents are struggling to govern the country's 40 million residents, experts say. If the Taliban government fails to provide for citizens' basic needs, including food, water and medical care, it too could find itself pushed out of power sooner rather than later, said Asfandyar Mir, a senior expert at the United States Institute of Peace. 

"We might see another collapse over the next six months, maybe 12 months, a little bit down the road. The Taliban are really struggling to govern the country," Mir said at the Soufan Center's Global Security Forum in Doha. "It's a real crisis that is brewing in that country, and I don't see any international actor having much interest in extending a helping hand to the Taliban."

When the Taliban was an insurgent group, they were able to pick and choose the government services they would to provide to supplement what the U.S.-backed government was doing, said Jason Campbell, a policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. For example, Taliban fighters and judges of sharia law would travel the country to set up "mobile courts" to settle conflicts such as land disputes. 

That level of governance is "fine, until you take over the country," Campbell said. "There is absolutely the risk of being the proverbial dog that caught the car, because now you don't get to pick and choose where you provide services....They are ill-equipped from a financial standpoint and even a bureaucratic standpoint to manage and organize."

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