Fraudz,
I don’t know if you’ve ever read any of Peter Hopkirk’s stuff ‘The Great Game’ which discusses the implications of the British paranoia over a Russian invasion of India and how Afghanistan and indeed Pakistan represented the ‘gate’ into India. Great book, although the author does at times, generalise about peoples in the region, I remember one comment, which arises again and again in the narrative, is the inborn deviousness and deception practiced by the South Asians.
I read quite a lot about the region in my youth anything I could get my hands on. Mainly focusing on external factors affecting the region, no doubt the shahs of Afghanistan had a tyrannical side to them as well but this is not ‘hard news’, which doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
If you want a well-documented timeline I suggest you do a search on the web, I’ll only be able to give you a flavour, that’s what I’m best at.
Alexander was the first documented external influence on the region in the 300 BC’s where on his way to defeating the Persian emperor Darius he acquired the region and used it as a staging ground for the invasion of India. Again he saw the potential of the Bolan and Khyber and other untold passes from the mountainous area into the flat plains of India. The geography doesn’t change so why should the importance of a place with respect to military adventurism?
From about 1000 AD onwards Mahmoud of Ghazni does his bit and stretches his empire from Persia towards India, his stronghold was Afghanistan at that time. It all goes pretty well until the Turks invade about a 100 years later. They too establish an empire with the seat in Afghanistan and an eye on India.
Then come the Mongols in the 1200’s, greatest impact by Timur in the region in the 1300’s. Obviously there’s a whole gamut of detailed history that goes on in between but eventually we get the Mughal dynasty and the Sikh wars which rage in what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan and there’s a whole bit of history regarding the Koh I Noor moving from a one-eyed Sikh ruler to Shah Suja of Afghanistan then kidnapping of family members and it being returned etc.
Then came the unsuccessful French with one of the Napoleons and then the British (with the Portuguese having a minor bit of influence in between).
I think the most important turn of events in the modern era for Afghanistan was gaining independence from the British about 30 years before Indian/Pakistan. They fought 3 wars against the ‘red coats’ and the region was deemed too troublesome to keep in the Empire. One of the Afghan wars is very well detailed by Hopkirk and describes a route of the British at the hands of the Afghan militia; the British and Afghanis carried out untold atrocities on each other for decades.
The second important event occurred in the 50’s where the prime minister of Afghanistan at the time (Afghanistan was always a monarchy from independence until the soviet invasion) did what Pakistan has been doing for years; attempt to play the USSR off the US in search for aid and patronage. This worked well until the early 70’s when internal power struggles led to increasing Soviet intervention until the full on invasion in ’79.
Then came the Americans, with a little period of Pakistani influence shortly preceding this.
Blimey it’s hard all this typing, why don’t you just come to London next month and we can chat about it all.