Lessons From Afghanistan
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By Scott Savitz
September 02, 2021
Sifting through the ashes of America’s 20-year intervention in Afghanistan, lessons might be learned by viewing it in a wider context. Afghanistan's fierce, relentless warriors and forbidding geography have defeated a succession of outsiders, including Alexander the Great, the British Empire, and the Soviet Union. While it is tempting to become fixated on comparisons between Afghanistan and Vietnam, especially given the strikingly similar images of people clambering onto aircraft in the fallen capital, there are lessons to be learned from past interventions by other powers. The multiple British wars in Afghanistan are particularly instructive, not only because of their civilization's similarity to the United States but also because of the ebullient overconfidence with which they began.
The British first invaded Afghanistan in 1839, aiming to depose an Afghan ruler who had been dallying with Russia. By replacing him with a more pliant cousin, they would create a British-dominated buffer state between Russian and Indian territory. Not everyone agreed that this was a sound policy: while the Governor-General of British India was enthusiastic, the Duke of Wellington—who had defeated Napoleon—thought an invasion to be risky. The invaders, like their subsequent American counterparts, took Kabul within months and installed a new government. Like so many before and after them, they thought that they had conquered Afghanistan to the point that officers' families were comfortably ensconced in the capital.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2021/09/02/lessons_from_afghanistan_792745.html
