KABUL, Afghanistan — Asadullah Ramin has lost all hope in his homeland — he’s so worried about what will happen when U.S. and international troops leave that he’s ready to pay a smuggler to whisk his family out of Afghanistan.

It would cost the 50-year-old, self-employed electronics engineer tens of thousands of dollars to leave his middle-class life in the Afghan capital and start a new chapter with his wife and their three daughters.

But he wouldn’t hesitate for a moment. He already paid to have his two sons smuggled to a European county he won’t disclose.

“If I could go in the next hour, I would leave everything — the house, my shop,” Ramin said, tears welling in his eyes as he spoke in his dusty workshop.

“I have no hope, no hope,” he said, opening his palms as if pleading to be understood.

The United States and its allies have tried to reassure Afghans that they are not abandoning the country when international combat troops leave by the end of 2014. Donor nations have pledged billions to bankroll Afghan security forces and billions more in development aid. Country after country has signed a long-term partnership pact with Kabul.

But the promises have done little to buoy the hopes of Afghans who are in despair about the future of their nation.

Among Afghans around the country interviewed by The Associated Press, the worry is pervasive. Many are deeply skeptical that Afghan police and security forces, which the U.S.-led coalition has spent years trying to build, will be able to fight insurgents and militants without American and NATO forces. Worse-case scenarios that some fear: The Afghan forces could splinter along ethnic lines and prompt civil war, the nation could plunge into a deep recession, or the Kabul government would remain too weak to hold off a Taliban takeover.

Hanging over the fears is a sense that history could repeat itself. Afghans felt abandoned by the U.S. after 1989, when the Soviet army withdrew from Afghanistan. U.S. support to mujahedeen fighters battling the Soviets dried up quickly and Afghanistan sank into civil war as militias and warlords battled for power, devastating Kabul. That was followed by the rise of the Taliban and years of rule under their repressive regime.

In one sign of the lack of confidence, the number of Afghan asylum seekers in 44 industrialized countries went up 34 percent in 2011 over the previous year, according to the latest figures issued by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. In 2011, 35,700 Afghans sought asylum, compared to 26,000 the previous year.

The Americans insist that the pledges of international support going forward will prevent the worst from happening. The pledges make the possibility of another civil war or deep recession “unlikely scenarios,” according to Ryan Crocker, who just stepped down as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan.

At a NATO summit in May in Chicago, NATO members agreed to help the Afghan government bankroll its security forces post-2014. Earlier this month in Tokyo, the international community pledged $16 billion in aid — at least through 2015 — to further help rebuild.

Still, civilians are increasingly caught in the middle of the fight against insurgents. Last year was the deadliest on record for civilians in the Afghan war, with 3,021 killed as insurgents stepped up suicide attacks and roadside bombs, according to the United Nations.