From 1747 to 1978 the Pushtuns had ruled Afghanistan under the Durrani dynasty, founded by Ahmed Shah Abdali. According to Samina Ahmed, the territorial boundaries had been clearly defined, particularly since Amir Abdul Rahman Khan’s reign (d. 1863), “encompassing a multi-ethnic and socially fragmented society, divided by clan, subtribal, tribal, linguistic, ethnic, and regional cleavages.”
Geography and a Weak Central State
The central state has historically been weak and has lacked a developed bureaucracy. Rampant tribalism and regionalism have inhibited centralization and the development of a sophisticated bureaucracy, due in large part to the geographic features of Afghanistan: mountain ranges impede communication, travel, and the ability of a central government to control peripheral areas. Nonetheless, within this fragmented state, traditional Pushtun control over the levers of power often left Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Shia Hazaras politically and economically marginalized. Divided, Afghanistan’s internal affairs were often manipulated by external powers, leaving Afghanistan weak and vulnerable to foreign manipulation.
From Greeks to the Great Game
Afghanistan has historically been the “graveyard of empires.” In the Greek-Macedonian expansion against Persian hegemony - started by Philip and ended by his son, Alexander the Great - what we now call Afghanistan was the bookend of a loosely united Hellenic empire. But, according to Steve Coll, the “Afghans” were neither Hellenized nor fully controlled: “Afghanistan’s forbidding mountain ranges and isolated valleys ensured that no single dogmatic creed, spiritual or political, could take hold of all its people.”
This is especially true when put in the context of Afghanistan’s having been delineated by an Anglo hand during the British imperial age. While protecting their crown jewel, India, the British fought wars in Afghanistan three times (1839-1842, 1878-1881, and 1917), and conducted at least forty military incursions into Afghanistan.
Just as the grab for Africa led to African states being drawn on maps, the Great Game between Russia and Great Britain led to Afghanistan’s ostensible creation. The British drew the Durand Line in 1893, which cut the Pushtun nation in two, half living in southeastern Afghanistan and half in northern Pakistan. This has been a constant source of intrigue and division within and between Afghanistan and Pakistan ever since.
Afghanistan During the Cold War
With the end of World War II the sun began to set on the British Empire. The devastation of war and the strains of maintaining a global empire by a bankrupt European island became too much. In 1947 the British withdrew from the subcontinent, ceding India and Pakistan their independence. When voted on in the United Nations, the sole nation to oppose Pakistan’s nationhood was Afghanistan. With British global influence beginning to wane, the Americans and Russians began to assert themselves more aggressively. Much like during the Great Game, the onset of the Cold War saw Afghanistan entrenched in the sphere of influence of neither great power.
Between 1946 and 1955, Afghanistan repeatedly sought support from the United States. But American commitments to Pakistan, not to mention the relative insignificance of Afghanistan to the United States at this time, largely precluded any involvement with Afghanistan. Still seeking foreign support, Afghanistan began to orient itself toward the juggernaut of the north, the USSR. And it is this relationship that would flourish during the 1970s, ending in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan of 1979.
Sources:
Milton Bearden, “Afghanistan, Graveyard of Empires,” Foreign Affairs 80, no. 6 (November/December
2001)
Amin Saikal, Modern Afghanistan: History of Struggle and Survival, New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004
Charles G. Cogan, “Partners in Time: The CIA and Afghanistan since 1979,” World Policy Journal 10, no. 2 (Summer 1993)
Samina Ahmed, “The Crisis of State Legitimacy,” Afghanistan: Past, Present, & Future, Islamabad: Institute of Regional Studies, 1997
Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, New York: Penguin Press, 2004
Raymond Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation, Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1994
