Understanding Afghanistan - History and focus of the last two centuries until the rise of the Taliban in 2021

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Introduction 
 
This thesis aims at providing a preliminary and broad examination of numerous characteristics 
of a country, which is necessary for properly comprehending its historical occurrences. 
Afghanistan is the country in issue, which has been at the centre of foreign politics and public 
opinion for more than two decades, a country rich in history and traditions but shrouded in 
mystery and uncertainty. The purpose of this thesis is to alleviate some of the worries that 
someone approaching the issue from a Western perspective (such as the undersigned) may have 
while discussing Afghanistan. Above all, the goal of this concept is to pull a topic so far away 
from us that it seems unworkable, unfriendly, and, to some, unimportant and secondary, even 
unworthy of our attention. 
The first section of this thesis provides an overview of the Nation, including its location, 
geographical makeup, and ethnic makeup of the Afghan people. All three are necessary 
components for comprehending Afghanistan's history: Its geographical location has made it, 
and continues to make it, a country with a strategic position that shifts the balances of 
neighbouring and international powers (depending on the interests at stake between the parties); 
the country's geography aids us not only in moving through history, distinguishing internal and 
external actors, but also in understanding the nature of Afghan ethnic groups, which has been 
modelled over millennia depending on the places where they have lived. Finally, the various 
and diverse ethnic groups that live in Afghanistan help us understand the dynasties, rivalries, 
and the difficulties that every invading foreign force has had in gaining absolute control of a 
nation that is frequently on the run and disunited, extremely backward and weak. 
The central section of the book continues the chronological journey started in the first chapter 
(from the birth of the Afghan nation state at the end of the 18th century to the end of the Soviet 
war and the fall of the Afghan Communist Party), focusing on the rise of the Taliban movement 
in Afghanistan and the characteristics of these figures on the border between warlords and 
Islamic-matrix terrorists. 
The third and final section examines Afghanistan's history from the US and NATO-led 
overthrow of the Taliban rule in 2001 to the most recent events of the summer of 2021, 
especially the departure of US forces and the Taliban's takeover of power. Finally, an attempt 
is being made to determine how this change in Afghanistan can once again shift international 
balances, now that the world scene has changed compared to twenty years ago, the US and its 
allies have changed, the West's "adversaries" have changed, and the Taliban prophesy and 
promise to be changed, as well as his usual allies and rivals. These themes may and almost
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always have a geopolitical flavour to them, making them difficult to analyse and displaying 
signals of force and ambiguity. Indeed, the events of late August to early December 2021 
sparked dissatisfaction among the general public (not only in Western countries) and thrust the 
Taliban and Afghanistan into the spotlight. 
The research material for this thesis may be separated into two categories: historical "traditional 
and classic" material for tracing chronologically more distant and already properly crystallized 
themes, and more journalistic material for reconstructing more current and yet to come 
elements.
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Chapter 1 – Afghanistan’s backgrounds 
 
Afghanistan’s current status is firmly anchored in three main factors: geography, history and 
ethnical composition. All the internal feuds, the civil wars, the external invasions, the 
consequent withdrawals, the popular resistances and the fundamentalisms, that have been 
protagonists in Afghani’s lives, can be understood only with the right knowledge of the three 
assets together. 
The country has always been challenged by different conquerors since the ancient ages, from 
Alexander the Great to Genghis Kahn, from the British Empire to the Czarist Empire, from the 
USSR to the USA; that is because Afghanistan has always been seen as the land of conjunction 
between the Middle Eastern World and the Asian World, the meeting point of Persians, 
Mongols, Turkish and Indian cultures, the buffer state to use as shield against the occasional 
rivals’ expansionism and, at least, a dangerous melting-pot. Modern Afghanistan began to take 
its form in the 19
th
 century, when it acquired international importance for the aims of influence 
between the British India and czarist Russia. The country faced two wars with the British during 
the nineteenth century, it stayed neutral during the two World Wars, even though it experienced 
a short civil war in the 1929. From 1920s to the 1970s the country lived a period of peace; this 
was also the period of the monarchy, scattered of continuous fights for the succession for the 
throne, which drove the country to be ruled by a filo-communist government at the end of 1970s 
and the consequent invasion by the USSR’s army in the 1979. After the Soviet withdrawal in 
1989, the end of the communist ruling and the consequent civil war during the early 1990s, 
Afghanistan became a failed state, led into chaos by internal struggles for power by different 
ethnical rooted jihadists
1
, until, in the second half of 1990s, the armed group of Taliban
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(Islamic fundamentalists) filled the empty spot and prevailed over the other fighting groups. 
                                                           
1
 “The noun comes from jihad, (Arabic: “struggle” or “effort”) also spelled jehad, in Islam, a meritorious struggle 
or effort. The exact meaning of the term jihād depends on context; it has often been erroneously translated in the 
West as “holy war.” Jihad, particularly in the religious and ethical realm, primarily refers to the human struggle to 
promote what is right and to prevent what is wrong. Throughout Islamic history, wars against non-Muslims, even 
when motivated by political and secular concerns, were termed jihads to grant them religious legitimacy. The 
Afghan wars of the late 20th and early 21st centuries were also viewed by many participants as jihads, first against 
the Soviet Union and Afghanistan’s Marxist government and later against the United States. During and since that 
time, Islamist extremists have used the rubric of jihad to justify violent attacks against Muslims whom they accuse 
of apostasy.” 
Afsaruddin, Asma. "Jihad". Encyclopaedia Britannica, 28 Feb. 2020, https://www.britannica.com/topic/jihad  
Accessed 21 September 2021. 
2
 “Taliban, Pashto Ṭālebān (“Students”), also spelled Taleban. The faction took its name from its membership, 
which consisted largely of students trained in madrasahs (Islamic religious schools) that had been established for 
Afghan refugees in the 1980s in northern Pakistan.” 
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Taliban". Encyclopaedia Britannica, 16 Aug. 2021, 
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Taliban  Accessed 21 September 2021.
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They made Afghanistan a country where the sharia
3
 was the based official law and the 
homeland of the international Islamic jihad towards the external world. At the beginning of the 
new millennium, the jihadists based in Afghanistan planned the 9/11 attack causing the U.S. 
invasion and toppling of Taliban. During the 20 years U.S. and its allies’ occupation, a new 
government was put in charge trying to restore the order, but during the recent few months, the 
‘western’ troops have withdrawn from Afghanistan and left the Taliban free to rise and gain the 
control of the country again
4
.  
Afghanistan’s ethnic composition is the result of its history and its position, it is the result of 
international trades and invasions, during the millennia, which forced an ethnic mixture. The 
main ethnic groups present on the territory are the Indo-European-Irani Tajiks and Pashtuns, 
the former are famous to be civilised and refined, the latter noble and proud. Thus, there are the 
people whose roots come from Turkish-Mongol hordes: the courteous and polite Hazaras, the 
hospitable Aimaks, plus the Uzbeks, the Turkmens and the Kyrgyz
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.  
The tribe structure, which Afghanistan’s rural population is built on, is another feature to focus 
on. Individuals see themselves firstly as part of local small groups, which are several among 
the country. This sense of belonging has differences in kinship, it differs from village to village, 
or generally by ethnicity
6
. These groups are usually named qawm
7
; a person can be linked to 
more than just one of these groups, since the term has several dimension meanings. A qawm 
can be the family, the tribe, the linguistic group and can be seen at local as at a higher level. 
There is a strong perception of loyalty within each qawm a member is holding, when conflicts 
are happening, an individual is required to aid for his own closest qawm, but conflicts can be 
stopped if a common and external danger is threatening them both. This can be seen as one of 
the reasons Afghanistan’s people were able to get united against the numerous invasions, they 
suffered
8
. 
                                                           
3
 “Sharīʿah, also spelled Sharia, the fundamental religious concept of Islam—namely, its law. 
The religious law of Islam is seen as the expression of God’s command for Muslims and, in application, constitutes 
a system of duties that are incumbent upon all Muslims by virtue of their religious belief. Known as the Sharīʿah 
(literally, “the path leading to the watering place”), the law represents a divinely ordained path of conduct that 
guides Muslims toward a practical expression of religious conviction in this world and the goal of divine favour 
in the world to come.”  
Coulson, Noel James and Shamsy, Ahmed El. "Sharīʿah". Encyclopaedia Britannica, 24 Jan. 2021, 
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Shariah  Accessed 21 September 2021. 
4
 Orfei Giovanni. Le invasioni dell’Afghanistan: da Alessandro Magno a Bush. Roma, Fazi, 2002. 
5
 Dottori Germano. Madani Amir, Afghanistan: crisi regionale, problema globale. Bologna, CLUEB, 2011.  
6
 Rubin R. Barnett. The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System, 
Second Edition, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2002. 
7
 This term can be generically translated as group or tribe from Arabic.  
8
 Durkin J. Keller. Authority, Legitimacy, and the Qawm: Historical Perspectives on Emergent Governance in 
Afghanistan, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, School of Advanced Military Studies. United States Army Command and 
General Staff College, 2009.