Afghanistan: Graveyard of Empires?

Where is it?

The Great Game: a buffer state

Boundaries

• The Emir: Kabul. Persian language
• Russo-Persian Treaty of 1813
• Anglo-Russian Convention of 1807

British Imperial Expansion

• Maritime Expansion
• The East India Company
• India in 1857

What is an Empire?

• Rome
• Spain
• France
• Britain
• Russia
• Nazi
• Soviet
• America?

Geo-political struggle for power

First Afghan War 1839-1842

• Dost Mohammed--unstable!
• Shah Shuja
• General Elphinstone's death march
• 16,000 dead or captured
• Reprisals--Kabul levelled.

Orientalism

• Ungovernable--"wild tribes"
• Fanatics
• Cruel
• Women

Indian "Mutiny" of 1857

Suez Canal 1869

German Unification 1871

Congress of Berlin 1878

Scramble for Africa 1885-1900

Second Afghan War 1878-1880

• Russian influence in Kabul
• Ayub Khan
• More military disasters
• Battle of Kandahar

Third Afghan War 1919

• Durand Line of 1893
• Emir Amanullah Khan 1919
• Soviet Revolution of 1917
• Amritsar Massacre of 1917
• Afghan "invasion"--Khyber Pass
• Airpower--bombing
• 1921 Treaty with Soviet Union
• Zahir Shah, "last king" 1933-1973

The Cold War 1945-1991

• De-Colonization
• Global Anti-Communism
• Containment 1946
• The Truman Doctrine 1947
• Defense of Freedom/Democracy
• Continuation of World War II

Global Balance of Power

• Korea 1950-1953
  • 31,000 US Dead
  • Containment?
• Cuba
  • Missile Crisis 1962
  • Assassination of John F. Kennedy, 1963
• Vietnam 1963-1974
  • 50,000 U.S. dead

2 million + Vietnamese dead

• Napalm/War on Civilians (i.e. firebombing)

Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan 1979-1989

• Instability
• Benefits of Communism: women
• US support for opponents, including Taliban
• Insurgencies in countryside
• Soviet withdrawal
  • Soviet deaths 14,500; 53,753 wounded, 10,751 disabled
  • Afghan casualties? 500,000-2 million

   

End of the Cold War, 1991. An Empire in Denial?

How to justify America's global role without communism?

Permanent Overseas Presence:

• 702 overseas bases in 130 countries
• 253,288 uniformed personnel + dependents
• 44870 barracks, hangars, hospitals, and other buildings
• Airline: the Air Mobility Command, with its fleet of long-range C-17 Globemasters, C-5 Galaxies, C-141 Starlifters, KC-135 Stratotankers, KC-10 Extenders, and C-9 Nightingales
• 234 military golf courses

Human Rights Interventionism

• Clinton Administration 1992-2000
• Somalia 1992-1994
• War on Serbia, 1999 (Kosovo)

US Invasion of Afghanistan 2001-

• Attack on World Trade Center, 2001
• Motives? Attack on Freedom

Freedom vs. Geo-politics.

• Invasion of Iraq: balance of power
• Global "war on terror" declared by President Bush
• Islamic Terrorism replaces Communism

President Obama's Surge

• Nobel Peace Prize Speech
• Dr. King's 1967 speech: "A Time to Break the Silence"
• Surge based on Johnson Vietnam model

The Obama Doctrine?

• Presidential authority to deploy drones anywhere in the world
• Right to assassinate, arrest indefinitely, and torture American citizens at home or abroad
• The Kill List
• "Due process" defined as presidential decision.

1984