Afghanistanism

From Afghanistan +‎ -ism. The first recorded use is by Jenkin Lloyd Jones, editor of the Tulsa Tribune, in 1948; see quotation below.

Afghanistanism (countable and uncountable, plural Afghanistanisms)

1. The practice of concentrating on problems in distant parts of the world while ignoring controversial local issues.
   • 1948, Jenkin Lloyd Jones, “Editorial Page Panel”, in Proceedings of the Annual Meeting, American Society of Newspaper Editors, page 73:

     I don't wish to belabor this subject of Afghanistanism, this business of taking forthright stands on elections in Costa Rica, while the uncollected local garbage reeks beneath the editor's window.

The term originally referred specifically to a focus on problems in far-flung lands that were inconsequential to one's audience; Afghanistan was a place of little or no importance to American interests at the time the term was coined.