Since the terroristic attack on the World Trade Center on september 11th, 2001 and the following invasion by the Allied forces in Afghanistan in order to fight the Taliban regime and Al-Quaida, the Western countries are involved in an ongoing conflict which seems to have no end.

After nine years of war the situation still remains unstable. The set up afghan government turns out to be corrupt and more and more people are dying on both sides. Which again provides radical Islamist groups an even better and stronger breeding ground for their resistance.

Pull out the troops, because this war can't be won, but risk lots of blood in another civil war, and maybe a much worse and more dangerous scenario? Or shall we stay and take the risk of being trapped in a never-ending conflict, which will cost a huge amount of money, blood and tears.

When we started researching this topic we very quickly saw, that the debate whether to pull out the troops, staying or even enforcing is not too much about arguments, it’s a battle of possible scenarios. Every side seems to have their own positive and negative visions of how things will happen in the future if certain steps are done. The resulting map The Afghan Conflict - A Map of Possible Scenarios is the attempt of a summary of the most popular possible scenarios around the afghan conflict, according to a pullout or stay of the Allied troops. And is based on interviews with journalists, politicians and political foundations.

Please notice that or goal was never to display the full consequences in every detail because in such a complex process and especially when you try to make future predictions this is never possible. But we do give an overview about the main problematics and its complexity.

For a better viewing use the Prezi-Tool on our [website](http://www.theafghanconflict.de „website“)

The Afghan Conflict - A Map of Possible Scenarios starts with the current Timeline, a single line on the map. Which then splits into more and more possible future scenarios currently discussed. The scenarios split and join, or lead to other ones according to events that may take place or decisions made. The design is pure and minimalistic, using only lines and typographic elements, which does not resemble the ugliness of a war, but helps understanding a complex structure of problems without being visually manipulated by polemic images.

The final print is now 164cm x 90cm big, with a bit more white space on top and bottom.

Special thanks for the big support to: Susanne Köbl (Spiegel), Can Merey (dpa) & Hauke Friederichs (ZEIT)

And we would also like to thank: The Heinrich Böll Stiftung, the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Markus Horeld (ZEIT), Karl-Heinz Niedermeyer (SPD), Katrin Schmidberger (Bündnis 90 die Grünen), Klaus Hatzenbuehler (BMVg) and all the others we have been talking to.