The graveyard of empires is a sobriquet often associated with Afghanistan. It originates from the several historical examples of foreign powers having been unable to achieve military victory in Afghanistan in the modern period, including the British Empire, the Soviet Union and, most recently, the United States. [2] [3]
Historically, great powers have invaded Afghanistan without having been able to maintain stable long-term rule. Modern examples include the British Empire during the First, Second, and Third Anglo-Afghan Wars (1839–1842, 1878–1880, 1919); the Soviet Union in the Soviet–Afghan War (1979–1989); and the United States in the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021). [2] [3] [4] The difficulty of conquering Afghanistan has been attributed to the problems that invaders face when confronting its hazardous mountainous terrain, desert conditions, severe winters, guerilla warfare, fortress-like qalats, [5] enduring clan loyalties, [6] empires often being in conflict with each other while simultaneously attempting to subdue Afghanistan, and complications caused by interactions with Afghanistan's neighboring countries—such as coordinating relations with Pakistan, where fighters in Afghanistan have sometimes located their sanctuaries. [7]
The phrase, in reference to Afghanistan, does not seem to predate a 2001 article by Milton Bearden in the magazine Foreign Affairs . [8] [9] Alternatively, the term has been applied to Mesopotamia. [10] Elsewhere, a very similar phrase, "the graveyard of nations and empires," has been used in a figurative sense to describe the Old Testament's Book of Isaiah. [11]
The anthropologist Thomas Barfield has noted that the narrative of Afghanistan as an unconquerable nation has been used by Afghanistan itself to deter invaders. [12] In October 2001, during the United States invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban founder and leader Mohammed Omar Mujahid threatened the United States with the same fate as the British Empire and the Soviet Union. [13] U.S. President Joe Biden referred to the sobriquet while he delivered a public statement after the 2021 fall of Kabul as evidence that no further commitment of American military presence would consolidate the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan against the Taliban. [14]
The New York Times foreign correspondent Rod Nordland has stated that "in truth, no great empires perished solely because of Afghanistan." [15] Joint Services Command and Staff College lecturer Patrick Porter called the attribution "a false extrapolation from something that is true - that there is tactical and strategic difficulty." [6]
The British Empire was not destroyed after the Third Anglo-Afghan War, [16] and the collapse of the British Empire was more commonly attributed to World War II. [6] While the Soviet–Afghan War was a major factor in the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the opposition in Afghanistan was only possible with foreign aid, primarily from the United States. [17] [7] Furthermore, there is reason to believe that the Soviet Union would have collapsed regardless of the campaign. [16] Nonetheless, the narrative allowed for argument from analogy and the thesis of "history repeating itself", which proved accepted amongst authors and political experts. [16] [17]
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the east and south, Iran to the west, Turkmenistan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, Tajikistan to the northeast, and China to the northeast and east. Occupying 652,864 square kilometers (252,072 sq mi) of land, the country is predominantly mountainous with plains in the north and the southwest, which are separated by the Hindu Kush mountain range. Kabul is the country's capital and largest city. According to the World Population review, as of 2023, Afghanistan's population is 43 million. The National Statistics Information Authority of Afghanistan estimated the population to be 32.9 million as of 2020.
The history of Afghanistan, preceding the establishment of the Emirate of Afghanistan in 1823 is shared with that of neighbouring Iran, Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. The Sadozai monarchy ruled the Afghan Durrani Empire, considered the founding state of modern Afghanistan.
The Military history of Afghanistan began before 1709 when the Hotaki dynasty was established in Kandahar followed by the Durrani Empire. The Afghan military was re-organized with assistance from the British in 1880, when the country was ruled by Amir Abdur Rahman Khan. It was modernized during King Amanullah Khan's rule in the early 20th century, and then during King Zahir Shah's forty-year rule; the Soviet Union supplied almost all weapons, training and military needs between the 1950s and 1970s. From 1978 to 1992, the Soviet-backed Afghan Armed Forces engaged in heavy fighting with the multi-national mujahideen groups who were then backed by the United States, Pakistan and others. After President Najibullah's resignation in 1992 and the end of Soviet support, the Afghan military dissolved into portions controlled by different factions. This era was followed by the Taliban regime, whose leaders were trained and influenced by the Pakistan Armed Forces.
The Soviet–Afghan War was a protracted armed conflict fought in the Soviet Union-controlled Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) from 1979 to 1989. The war was a major conflict of the Cold War as it saw extensive fighting between the Soviet Union, the DRA and allied paramilitary groups against the Afghan mujahideen and their allied foreign fighters. While the mujahideen were backed by various countries and organizations, the majority of their support came from Pakistan, the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Iran, and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. The involvement of the foreign powers made the war a proxy war between the United States and the Soviet Union. Combat took place throughout the 1980s, mostly in the countryside of Afghanistan. The war resulted in the deaths of approximately 3,000,000 Afghans, while millions more fled from the country as refugees; most externally displaced Afghans sought refuge in Pakistan and in Iran. Approximately 6.5% to 11.5% of Afghanistan's erstwhile population of 13.5 million people is estimated to have been killed over the course of the conflict. The Soviet–Afghan War caused grave destruction throughout Afghanistan and has also been cited by scholars as a significant factor that contributed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, formally ending the Cold War. It is also commonly referred to as "the Soviet Union's Vietnam".
Afghanistan is a mountainous landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Some of the invaders in the history of Afghanistan include the Maurya Empire, the ancient Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great, the Rashidun Caliphate, the Mongol Empire led by Genghis Khan, the Timurid Empire of Timur, the Mughal Empire, various Persian Empires, the Sikh Empire, the British Empire, the Soviet Union, and most recently the United States with a number of allies in response to the September 11 attacks. A reduced number of NATO troops remained in the country in support of the government. Just prior to the American withdrawal in 2021, the Taliban regained control of the capital Kabul and most of the country. They changed Afghanistan's official name to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
Milton Bearden is an American author, film consultant, and former CIA officer. Bearden served as the president and CEO of the Asia-Africa Projects Group, a Washington, D.C.-based firm that provides resource development and advisory services, from 2010 to 2015. He has been engaged in authorship and film consultancy since 1998. As of 2016, Bearden resides in Austin, Texas with his wife, Marie-Catherine, a retired university professor, at Georgetown University and the University of Texas at Austin, and currently a professional consultant on inter-cultural protocols and etiquette.
Kandahār is one of the thirty four provinces of Afghanistan, located in the southern part of the country, sharing a border with Pakistan, to the south. It is surrounded by Helmand in the west, Uruzgan in the north and Zabul Province in the east. Its capital is the city of Kandahar, which is Afghanistan's second largest city, which is located on the Arghandab River. The greater region surrounding the province is called Loy Kandahar. The Emir of Afghanistan sends orders to Kabul from Kandahar making it the de facto capital of Afghanistan, although the main government body operates in Kabul. All meetings with the Emir take place in Kandahar, meetings excluding the Emir are in Kabul.
Asadabad, also called Chaghasarai (چغسرای) or Kafiristan (کافرستان), is the capital city of Kunar Province in Afghanistan. It is located in the eastern-northeastern portion of the country. The city is located within a valley at the confluence of the Pech River and Kunar River between two mountain ridgelines running along both sides of the valley from Northeast to Southwest.
Shortly after the September 11 attacks, the United States declared the war on terror and subsequently led a multinational military operation against Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The stated goal was to dismantle al-Qaeda, which had executed the attacks under the leadership of Osama bin Laden, and to deny Islamist militants a safe base of operations in Afghanistan by toppling the Taliban government. The United Kingdom was a key ally of the United States, offering support for military action from the start of the invasion preparations. The American military presence in Afghanistan greatly bolstered the Northern Alliance, which had been locked in a losing fight with the Taliban during the Afghan Civil War. Prior to the beginning of the United States' war effort, the Taliban had seized around 85% of Afghanistan's territory as well as the capital city of Kabul, effectively confining the Northern Alliance to Badakhshan Province and smaller surrounding areas. The American-led invasion on 7 October 2001, marked the first phase of what would become the 20-year-long War in Afghanistan.
Relations between Afghanistan and the United States began in 1921 under the leaderships of King Amanullah Khan and President Warren G. Harding, respectively. The first contact between the two nations occurred further back in the 1830s when the first recorded person from the United States explored Afghanistan. The United States government foreign aid program provided about $500 million in aid for economic development; the aid ended before the 1978 Saur Revolution. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 was a turning point in the Cold War, when the United States started to financially support the Afghan resistance. The country, under both the Carter and Reagan administrations committed $3 billion dollars in financial and diplomatic support and along with Pakistan also rendering critical support to the anti-Soviet Mujahideen forces. Beginning in 1980, the United States began admitting thousands of Afghan refugees for resettlement, and provided money and weapons to the Mujahideen through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The USSR withdrew its troops in 1989.
In the late 1990s, some journalists used the expression "New Great Game" to describe what they proposed was a renewed geopolitical interest in Central Asia based on the mineral wealth of the region.
Afghan Arabs are Arab and other Muslim Islamist mujahideen who came to Afghanistan during and following the Soviet–Afghan War to aid the war efforts of native Muslims in the DRA. Despite being called "Afghan" they were not from Afghanistan nor legally citizens of Afghanistan.
Several sources have alleged that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had ties with Osama bin Laden's faction of "Afghan Arab" fighters when it armed Mujahideen groups to fight the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War.
The Afghanistan conflict began in 1978 and has coincided with several notable operations by the United States (U.S.) Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The first operation, code-named Operation Cyclone, began in mid-1979, during the Presidency of Jimmy Carter. It financed and eventually supplied weapons to the anti-communist mujahideen guerrillas in Afghanistan following an April 1978 coup by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) and throughout the nearly ten-year military occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.). Carter's successor, Ronald Reagan, supported an expansion of the Reagan Doctrine, which aided the mujahideen along with several other anti-Soviet resistance movements around the world.
Relations between Afghanistan and Russia first emerged in the 19th century. At the time they were placed in the context of "The Great Game", Russian–British confrontations over Afghanistan from 1840 to 1907. The Soviet Union was the first country to establish diplomatic relations with Afghanistan following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919. On 28 February 1921, Afghanistan and the Soviet Russia signed a Friendship Treaty. The Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan against the Basmachi movement in 1929 and 1930.
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan nationality law is regulated by the Constitution of Afghanistan, as amended; the Citizenship Law of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and its revisions; the Afghan Civil Code; and various international agreements to which the country is a signatory. These laws determine who is, or is eligible to be, an Afghan national. The legal means to acquire nationality, formal legal membership in a nation, differ from the domestic relationship of rights and obligations between a national and the nation, known as citizenship. Nationality describes the relationship of an individual to the state under international law, whereas citizenship is the domestic relationship of an individual within the nation. Some countries use the terms nationality and citizenship as synonyms, despite their legal distinction and the fact that they are regulated by different governmental administrative bodies.
The Afghanistan–Uzbekistan border is 144 km (89 mi) in length and runs from the tripoint with Turkmenistan to the tripoint with Tajikistan along the Amu River. It is the shortest of Uzbekistan's external borders. The city of Termez in Uzbekistan and the town of Hairatan in Afghanistan are the closest major populated centers to the border.
The politics of Afghanistan are based on a totalitarian emirate within the Islamic theocracy in which the Taliban Movement holds a monopoly on power. Dissent is not permitted, and politics are mostly limited to internal Taliban policy debates and power struggles. As the government is provisional, there is no constitution or other basis for the rule of law. The structure is autocratic, with all power concentrated in the hands of the supreme leader and his clerical advisors. According to the V-Dem Democracy indices Afghanistan was as of 2023 the 4th least electoral democratic country in the world.
The following is an outline of the series of events that led up the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021).