afghanistan

{{geography of afghanistan{{

  • cold winters, hot summers
  • issues with freshwater
    • water comes from the hindu kush - when the snow melts
    • climate change impacting the freshwater
  • mountains separate into four different areas
    • people in each area would identify more with the bordering country
    • those in the southeast would identify more with pakistan, they are pashtun
    • ethnic similarity
  • the border between afghanistan and pakistan is known as the durand line
  • afghanistan was traditionally a difficult place to hold an empire
    • frontier of empires
    • graveyard of empires
  • the borders were formed between the russian empire and british india to make sure they (russians and british) didn’t have any common borders
    • wakhan border
  • since the us had a friendly relationship with pakistan led the ussr to have a presence in southern asia
  • iran has a lot of influence on afghanistan with language and etc.
  • each area identifies closely with the country or territory it is bordering.

{{the people{{

  • some speak dari
  • very fractured area when it comes to demographics - the ethnicities, languages, and religions
  • muslim area; majority sunni muslim
  • today it is a “islamic republic”
  • very poor country, economy has been destroyed by conflict
  • standards of living are very low
  • land isn’t advantageous
  • biggest export is opium, which is used to make heroin (not necessarily a legal export)

{{early history{{

  • early on, ancient empire wise this area goes through a series of empires that it’s ruled by - persia, greece
  • islam comes in during the 9th-10th centruy and islamic empires don’t really last
  • mongols enter and when they leave afghanistan find themselves in the situation where they are caught between two powers
    • powers change but this is a recurring theme
    • earliest one: safavid and mughal empires
    • for a short time is an important power in between itself
    • unification in between afghanistan happens when nadir shah dies and leaves a power vacuum and his bodyguard steps in
      • bodyguard was ethnically pashtun
      • able to take a significant part of southeast asia and rule
      • ahmed shah durrani - ruler [1747]
      • rules for ~200 years and collapses after his death
    • afghanistan was a key political, cultural, and economic player
    • was a conduit for trade from central asia to southeast asia
    • key commodities of afghanistan
    • horses
      • at the time these were used for war
    • mercenaries
    • melons
      • were seen as a luxury item
    • british don’t find any of these useful to them are dispopulate them and afghanistan ends up collapsing
    • doesn’t really produce anything of importance and is useful to the world politics and all wise

{{imperialism{{

  • 1800s british and russian rivalry
    • “the great game”
  • if people have heard of afghanistan before the 2001, they referred to it as this anglo russian rivalry,
  • afghanistan is squeezed in the middle
  • these two empires are separated by thousands of miles of territory that they are not familiar with
  • became closer with the wakhan border
  • they want a buffer zone and brits don’t want russian to come to afghanistan because of the khyber pass because those are very important strategic paths to hold
    • natural barrier to protect and prevent russia from expanding further south
  • british didn't believe that they wouldn’t invade and went ahead and invaded them first anglo-afghan war (1838)
  • second anglo-afghan war (1878)
  • they set up a puppet government which is the british protectorate

{{independence{{

  • war for independence
    • inspired by the colonial powers being weakened because of ww1
    • declare independence
    • led by amanullah khan
    • british do leave after a while
    • on their way out they provoke a civil war
      • khan must abdicate
      • many warlords take over and mohammed zahir shah is the last kind
      • civil war and abdication (1929)
      • mohammed nadir shah
      • mohammed zahir shah (last king and autocratic ruler)
  • afghanistan through 1979
    • 1973;
    • king mohammed zahir shah is overthrown
      • new president daoud khan
      • does some liberation but not enough
      • because people wanted more democracy and freedom
      • declared a republic
    • april 28, 1971;
    • saur revolution
      • people decide that daoud khan hasn’t done enough and they were known as “peoples democratic party of afghanistan”
      • held communist beliefs
    • 1979-1987
    • democratic republic of afghanistan
      • were communist
{{the cold war and the soviet invasion - (1979-1989){{
  • us and soviet relations before the soviet invasion of afghanistan
    • was tense and because of nixon and the ussr under khrushchev both understood that with the spread of nuclear weapons it’s vital to reduce danger and number of nuclear weapons
    • began negotiating treaties
    • june of 1979
      • carter and bresznev signed a new treaty in vienna which jump started taking measures for world safety
      • caused some issues in the united states, within the governments
    • in the months leading up to the invasion it was somewhat uncertain what their relationship was
    • both governments doing what they could to deal with domestic issues
    • 1979 - end of jimmy carter’s presidency and he’s voted out of office
    • years following - lots of tension between the two powers

why did the ussr invade?

  • was preceded a year and a half earlier by a marxist
  • marxist tried to gain popular support by trying to initiate land reform and etc
  • efforts did not succeed
    • afghans didn’t support the atheism
  • local uprising with the people of afghanistan; soviets saw this as losing an important ally since they no longer wanted to identify as afghanistan
    • this is part of the reason why they invaded
  • another reason is because the ussr didn’t trust the government of the PDPA
    • saw them as clumsy and needed to step in

the soviet invasion of afghanistan

  • lots of opposition to the soviet invasion
    • this united the afghans
  • united states
    • we became more interested in afghanistan when the soviet union invades
    • why did the US and the USSR compete in afghanistan?
    • relationship between the both starts with a bidding war on afghanistan
    • soviets build certain things and provide northern afghanistan with aid, while southern afghanistan was the united state’s responsibility
    • these countries are involved because
      • for the ussr: it is their foreign abroad
      • like how the us had south america
      • for the united states
      • sees as competition due to afghanistan’s proximity to the soviet union
      • when the ussr invades, us sends over supplies and weapons to aid the afghanis
    • american response
      • in an effort to help; the CIA offers military training to mujahidin and weapons
    • started to become difficult for the soviet union, they could hold the cities but not the countryside
  • what were the side effects of the soviet occupation of afghanistan
    • soviet occupation for the afghans were devastating
    • ~1million are killed
    • 3-4% of the population
    • 5-7 million are displaced and fled to iran and the west or pakistan and the south
    • ussr destroy infrastructure
    • social and cultural changes on afghanistan
    • many are forced to become refugee camps
    • people’s sense of loyalty tend to be the region of where they left
    • people are forced to mix with other people they have nothing to do with
      • different religions, customs, languages
      • tribal and local identities break down and make way for ethnic identities

{{1989-2001{{

  • 1989: soviet withdrawal; PDPA left in charge
    • now the PDPA is left to fend for themselves
    • us doesn’t care and stops with aid
    • the afghan fighting for themselves
    • mujahidin who are supposed to be freedom fighters evolve into heavily armed warlords
    • this turns into a civil war
    • afghan people can bond over religion
    • in these camps (in pakistan) a new form of islam, an extremist version was formed
      • poorly sourced hadith
      • people aren’t looking at this from a scholarly position, these young religious students opposed to greed and corruption
      • birth of taliban

pakistan worried

camps are in pakistan

there’s also a civil war next door

pakistan wants this to end and they do so by funding and enabling the taliban to end the war

this leads to them being well received

however, the taliban want to create a theocratic state based on their extremist version

  • taliban
  • a group of disenchanted mujahidin students are frustrated with everything that happened, the local warlords and commanders created a fiefdom, many were abusive, incredibly corrupt
  • in the beginning, the taliban were “good” and welcomed because they promised a degree of peace and security and this erode as their goal shifted to a islamic state but one that focused on their extremist version of islam and they wanted to ban outside influences like music
    • wanted to institute a draconian moral code
    • taliban favored pashtuns over other ethnic groups
  • creation of taliban:
  • taliban actually gained support by saying they supported women, protecting and preserving their honor and then when they took control they oppressed women completely, could only do things outside with a male relative present
  • rural women weren’t as oppressed and these rules may not have been as enforced, however the taliban couldn’t properly distribute