Our writers can help get your essay back on track, take a look at our services to learn more about how we can help. Geographically afghanistan can be described as a landlocked country and the junction point of central, west and south asia. It shares borders with china in the east, iran to the west, pakistan to the south and south east and tajikistan, turkmenistan and uzbekistan to the north. A large number of invaders have crossed this land leaving behind a mix of ethnic and linguistic groups. It has an area of 2,50,0 sq miles and is the gateway to the hydrocarbon rich central asia. The unique location of the country has led to its being a scene of flourishing trade and great empires which has resulted in mixed ethnic groups each having its individual entity.

The history of afghanistan can be divided under the following a the pre islamic period. This period saw the invasion of afghanistan by the aryans, persians, medians, greeks, mauryans, bactrians and other civilizations. Alexander the great captured bactria by crossing the afghanistan land mass from the west and he was later followed by the sycthians, white huns and goh turks.

The khorasam persian arabs controlled afghanistan with the emergence of ghaznavids in 998. In 1146 the ghors defeated the ghaznavids to take over the power pushing the ghaznavids into the area of ghazni. In 1219 genghiz khan invaded afghanistan and caused large scale destruction and mass slaughter of the population. After his death in 1227 the rule shifted hands between a number of petty chiefs and princes until the 14th century. Timur lenk lane a descendant of genghis khan was responsible to incorporate afghanistan in one empire.

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Later on babur the founder of the moghul empire in india made kabul his capital in the 16th century. The founder of modern day afghanistan ahmed shah durrani came into power in 1747. 'the great game' between great britain in india and soviet union started when dost mohammed khan was the ruler.

Russia was attempting to get a land corridor via afghanistan to the arabian sea and establish its hold on persia, to prevent this design of russia the british launched two failed attempts in to afghanistan which resulted in the afghan wars in 1839 and 1878. The last afghan war brought amir abdur rahman khan to the throne till 1901 when the present day boundaries of afghanistan were demarcated with the foreign affairs of afghanistan coming under british control. The third afghan war ended in the treaty of rawalpindi with the foreign affair coming back under afghanistan.

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King amanullah ruled afghanistan from 1919 to 1929, he tried to modernise his country however this resulted in an armed opposition in january 1929 by the conservative islamic and tribal population. This brought nadir shah to the throne in 1929 however he was assassinated in 1933 for his modernistic reforms. Zahir shah tried to establish a democratic setup which saw the forming of a number of unofficial extremist parties. People democratic party of afghanistan pdpa was one such party which had close ideological ties with ussr.

After the 1971 72 drought the royal family came under charges of corruption, prime minister mohammed daoud khan decided to seize power in 1973 and declared afghanistan a republic. In april 1978 the disillusionment led to a coup with the pdpa nur muhammed taraki becoming the president and prime minister of the democratic republic of afghanistan. While afghanistan was going through phase after phase of instability and power struggles, russia began its meteoric rise from its backward and barbarian image in the 18th century to being a superpower in the 20th century. Britain on the other hand viewed the rise of russia as a threat to the power balance in europe. While russia was looking for a passage to the arabian sea the british empire was trying to prevent russia from doing so and afghanistan was the point of confluence of the interests of both russia and britain. After the british left india the conflict shifted between ussr and usa and the struggle for control of oil rich caspian basin intensified with west asia becoming the area of interest for the us.

Who wrote this essay request removal example essays the problem with the state of afghanistan was that ever since the coup against zahir shah, all the governments which have ruled the state did not have legitimacy in the eyes of the afghan population. The three things that went against daoud was that, firstly he used coercion to establish his authority, secondly he termed the coup as a revolution which in future became a precedence and thirdly he took support of the communist parcham group. The afghan economy which was based on agriculture was not strong enough to provide capital for the development of the country, this was further effected by the corrupt bureaucracy. The relations between afghanistan and soviet union developed during the fifties, when the soviet union started providing military hardware as well as financial aid to afghanistan for development works. Even though ussr never directly support the communist movement in afghanistan however there were two main groups in afghanistan who were pro communist, they were the khalqs led by muhammad taraki and hafizullah amin dominated by pushtuns with a few kabulis, the other was the parcham group under babrak karmal, the two groups formed the pdpa in 1965 67, however due to leadership tensions the groups separated. In tne seventies the two groups reunited, tis posed a threat to the daoud regime due to growing friction between daoud and the parchams. Taraki became the president and the prime minister, amin as the foreign minister and karmal as the deputy prime minister.

However the friction between the two groups increased, karmal was sent as the afghan ambassador to czechoslovakia. The regime of the pdpa had the same shortcomings as that of the daoud regime which resulted in a resistance against the regime. One of the major events which caught the eyes of the soviets was the uprising in heart in march 1979. By september 1979 the situation had further deteriorated in afghanistan, with amin removing taraki and subsequently murdering him. In 1979 the soviets moved in to afghanistan killing amin and putting karmal in power. The soviet forces were not prepared to fight in a situation as faced by them in afghanistan, they had the doctrines to fight conventional war but not for counterinsurgency operations. Their main aim was to save the communist regime in afghanistan and at the same time strengthen the afghan armed forces, but the more force the soviets used to establish the rule of karmal, it further reduced the legitimacy of the regime.

The resistance in afghanistan was mainly based on protection of islam which provided the authority as well as the ideology for the resistance. The resistance started in th e villages where the control of the regime was less. They were averse to the atheist nature of the soviet which formed the basis of opposition. A number of parties emerged during the period which mostly had their bases in pakistan. The notable ones were the sunni mujahideen parties namely mahaz e milli e islami afghanistan under sayid ahmed gilani, jabha i mili i nijat e afghanistan under sehghatullah mojadiddi and harkat e inqilab e islami afghanistan under nabi muhammadi. All these were supposed to be moderate in nature, sympathetic to zahir shah and led by pushtuns. The fundamentalist parties consisted of heb e islami under mawlawi muhammad younus khales and other under gulbudin hekmatyar.

Ittehad e islami was led by abdul rab al rasoul sayyaf which had financial backing from saudi arabia. There were also some shia parties which emerged during the same period with support from iran. There were also two notable regional commanders namely ismail khan who came to prominence in heart and ahmed shah massoud atajik born in panjsher valley.

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The period from 1979 to 1985 saw growing resistance against the soviets invasion, karmals efforts to legitamise his regime on the basis of saving islam through his fundamental principles and an increased support by pakistan to the various resistance groups, notable gulbudin hekmatyar's hezab e islami. It also saw a number of arab states providing support to the resistance and the us involvement indirectly through pakistan to throw out the soviets for afghanistan. In 1985 mikhail gorbachev took over as general secretary in soviet union, he was not from the staunch bolshevik era and was the main force to start a revolution, which not only effected the soviet union but operations in afghanistan also. He saw afghanistan as a bleeding wound and was instrumental in pulling out of afghanistan.