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Afghanistan: Modern Afghanistan
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Modern Afghanistan has been in turmoil since the late 1970s. After infighting among ministers who deposed the long-ruling royal family, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and installed a sympathetic regime in the capital, Kabul. Anticommunist Muslim rebels—known as mujahedeen, or holy warriors—received support from the United States and from many Muslim countries, particularly Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Joining the Afghan mujahedeen were several thousand Muslim volunteers from abroad. After the Soviets withdrew in 1989, rival Afghan factions fought a fierce civil war that led to the rise of the Taliban, who ruled until the U.S.-led invasion toppled the regime in 2001.
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Afghanistan has been subjected alternately to Mogul[43] and Persian dominion. Previous to the advent of the British on the shores of India the foreign invasions which swept the plains of Hindostan always proceeded from Afghanistan. Sultan Mahmoud the Great, Genghis Khan, Tameriane, and Nadir Shah, all took this road. In 1747 after the death of Nadir, Shah Ahmed, who had learned the art of war under that military adventurer, determined to shake off the Persian yoke. Under him Afghanistan reached its highest point of greatness and prosperity in modern times. He belonged to the family of the Suddosis, and his first act was to seize upon the booty which his late chief had gathered in India.
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Afghanistan survived as a medieval island in the modern world, characterized by backwardness and extreme poverty. In the postwar period, some changes began to occur as a result of foreign aid from the USSR and, to a lesser extent, the U.S., which were vying for influence during the Cold War. Power shifted toward the state, and an educated middle class began to emerge. But industry still barely existed.
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Though the modern state of Afghanistan was founded or created in 1747 by Ahmad Shah Durrani,[27] the land has an ancient history and various timelines of different civilizations. Excavation of prehistoric sites by Louis Dupree, the University of Pennsylvania, the Smithsonian Institution and others suggests that humans were living in what is now Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities of the area were among the earliest in the world.[28][29]
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Modern Afghanistan was created in the nineteenth century as a buffer state between the Russian and British empires as they played their "great game" in the region. This historical circumstance, coupled with the country's forbidding mountainous terrain, not only made it difficult for imperialist countries to conquer Afghanistan (it did not undergo colonial rule), but ... resulted in little economic development.
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During the 19th century, collision between the expanding British Empire in the subcontinent and czarist Russia significantly influenced Afghanistan in what was termed "The Great Game." British concern over Russian advances in Central Asia and growing influence in Persia precipitated two Anglo-Afghan wars. The first (1839-42) resulted not only in the destruction of a British army, but is remembered today as an example of the ferocity of Afghan resistance to foreign rule. The second Anglo-Afghan war (1878-80) was sparked by Amir Sher Ali's refusal to accept a British mission in Kabul. This conflict brought Amir Abdur Rahman to the Afghan throne. During his reign (1880-1901), the British and Russians officially established the boundaries of what would become modern Afghanistan through the demarcation of the Durand Line.
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Modern Afghanistan