Afghanistan is a place ravaged by war. However, it is also a network between countries made up of distinct tribes, people, religions, and cultures [2]. Few past empires or modern-day world powers could take full control of a stable Afghanistan due to the lack of unity that makes a country or governing state possible. There are various ethical groups largest such as Pashtun (the largest), Tajik, Hazara, and Uzbek that are different from one another combined with the use of diverse languages such as many Persian dialects and Pashto (the native language of Pashtun’s) that make Afghanistan a melting pot of identities [3].
Unlike other countries which have a central government, the importance of tribal leadership in Afghanistan prevents a national alliance that functions together as a whole. Over the various conquests, empires have tried to take the harsh desert and mountainous terrain of Afghanistan: the Achaemenians, the Greeks (Alexander the Great), the Mongols, the Mughals. They have all failed to establish a permanent overall identity or widely supported governmental system. The British Empire, and later the United States, sought influence against Russia/Soviet Union presence there, all of which resulted in military losses with little results [4].
Success was only temporary for any world power. Afghanistan had tried several times to apply a monarchy system that failed decades later with several violet coups, and after the departure of the Soviets, a new regime of the Taliban came to rule. The back and forth power struggle with U.S and NATO allies with the Taliban and other counter-military and terrorist groups gives insight into the fragile structure of the country [5].
The metaphor of a graveyard from military empires gives the impression that there is a place to be conquered, that Afghanistan is an unobtainable land, being an independent place beyond external control. This generalization presents a misunderstanding that the country can find unity where little mutually agreed upon exists in the modern-day geopolitical sense (a working government vs tribal alliances).
The idea that a unified Afghanistan state will align itself with other counties could be said to be naïve at best. International powers will have a hard time in the present and in the future in dictating the outcome of Afghanistan on account of a lack of consensus of what the “will of the people” even means to the people who live there. Until that time, Afghanistan will remain an unmarked graveyard on the side of the road between the Middle East and Asia. Not so much for the empires themselves, rather the ordinary people who got caught up in the quest for power, land, and to champion the victory of values at the cost of precious lives.
[1] Pillalamarri, A. (2017, June 30). Why Is Afghanistan the ‘Graveyard of Empires’? The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2017/06/why-is-afghanistan-the-graveyard-of-empires/
[2] Little, B. (2018, August 23). Why It’s So Difficult to Win a War in Afghanistan. HISTORY. https://www.history.com/news/why-its-so-difficult-to-win-a-war-in-afghanistan
[3] People, Ethnic Groups https://www.britannica.com/place/Afghanistan/Plant-and-animal-life#ref21423
[4] Internet Archive, Wayback Machine, Library of Congress – Federal Research Division
https://web.archive.org/web/20140408085103/http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/profiles/Afghanistan.pdf
[5] Government and society, Constitutional framework https://www.britannica.com/place/Afghanistan/Finance#ref21438
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