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AFGHANISTAN: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban

For two and a half millennia,

Afghanistan

has been a centerpiece for imperial ambitions. Its strategic location in Asia has made this an important crossroad for trade and conquest. Throughout the centuries the Afghanis have developed a warrior class with nearly unparalleled fighting skills and instincts. Time and again, this people has done whatever necessary to win battle after battle against invading and occupying forces, with little or no consideration for what we in the West would call appropriate rules of play. What we might call treachery, to the Afghani warrior is simply another strategy to be deployed on a fluid battlefield in a war that must be won. Switching sides during a pitched battle is not extraordinary --- nor would it be out of the ordinary to switch sides twice during a battle. In fact, looking over two-and-a-half thousand years of recorded military history, one would find this a commonplace strategy.

Prior to September 11th, many Americans may have had only the vaguest of notions about

Afghanistan

. Some will have known the piercing gaze of a beautiful young Afghani girl staring out from the cover of an old National Geographic magazine. Others may remember the epic occupation and eventual defeat of the Soviets in the 1980s. Fewer still will know that

Iran

and the Russians have a long military history intertwined with the Afghanis or that the British fought two massive campaigns in this country and were soundly defeated in both. And perhaps only a small number of erudite readers and scholars know that Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan both moved through this region wreaking havoc and subjugating the population. Today, in the post 9-11 world, we can't help but be acutely aware of Afghanistan's Bhurka clad women, the Taliban, and the US led struggle to terminate terrorism as it springs from the terrorist training bases and ancient caves that pepper the countryside.