While the country remains deeply impoverished and underdeveloped, with very low levels of literacy and internet penetration by global standards, the population has grown significantly, and Afghans today are better educated and connected with the outside world than they were a quarter-century ago (especially in the major cities). At the same time, the eyes of the world are trained on Afghanistan, whereas the country received little international attention before the 9/11 attacks. The challenge of obtaining and maintaining domestic and international legitimacy is much more daunting for the Taliban — indeed, the fact that they now seek international legitimacy at all is perhaps the one significant difference from the 1990s.

Already, the new Taliban government appears to be in disarray. The group’s supreme leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, has not been seen in public since the takeover, fueling speculation that he may be ill or dead. Abdul Ghani Baradar, the deputy prime minister, also disappeared from view earlier this month and was rumored injured or killed in a physical brawl among Taliban leaders, until he went on television last week to reassure everyone that he was alive and well. Other leaders, like Haqqani, are apparently in hiding out of longstanding fear that they might be targeted in U.S. drone strikes. Sharp divisions have reportedly emerged between more pragmatic and hardline factions within the senior Taliban leadership, including disagreements over the makeup of the cabinet. The hardliners appear to have prevailed for the time being, but these early conflicts do not bode well for the group’s ability to coherently govern a country of 38 million people.