2017 by the University Press of Kansas
All rights reserved
Published by the University Press of Kansas (Lawrence, Kansas 66045), which was organized by the Kansas Board of Regents and is operated and funded by Emporia State University, Fort Hays State University, Kansas State University, Pittsburg State University, the University of Kansas, and Wichita State University.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Jalali, Ali Ahmad, author.
Title: A military history of Afghanistan : from the Great Game to the Global
War on Terror / Ali Ahmad Jalali.
Description: Lawrence, Kansas : University Press of Kansas, 2017.
Series: Modern war studies | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016055770 | ISBN 9780700624072 (cloth : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9780700624089 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: AfghanistanHistory, Military. | AfghanistanStrategic aspects.
Classification: LCC DS356 .J35 2017 | DDC 355.009581dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016055770.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data is available.
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication is recycled and contains 30 percent postconsumer waste. It is acid free and meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.481992.
Foreword
Ali Ahmad Jalali is a professional soldier and politician as well as a noted scholar with an exceptionally acute analytical mind to complement his deep understanding of Afghanistans military and political history. An addition to his accomplished works on his country, A Military History of Afghanistan is magisterial in its scope and scholarship, yet highly readable to academic and lay historian alike. It is an absorbing account of a country that evokes emotion in most of us, whether because of a romantic understanding of the Great Game or as a result of more recent conflicts that have frequently dominated our television screens. Professor Jalali sheds fresh light on the Mujahedeens role in a war that contributed directly to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of the Taliban before finally examining the well-intentioned but often rather clumsy attempts to ensure the Taliban do not reassert their rule in Kabul after the post-9/11 invasion. The key to his analysis, placing recent conflicts in vital context, is the two thousand years of history that precedes the last 30, something I found of particular value and import.
Wars and warriors, armies and clannish fighters, foreign invasion and popular resistance all figure prominently in the long history of the land occupied by the modern Afghanistan. The distinctive geography of the country has shaped its history, which is in most part a military history.
As a crossroad of conquests, Afghanistans past is largely instilled with accounts of military developments and warfare as various armies from different areas using a multitude of different arms and tactics descended upon and invaded the country. From the Persians and Greeks in antiquity to the Mongols and Turks of the medieval period and the British, Soviet, and Americans in modern times, outsiders have led military conquest into the mountains and plains of Afghanistan, leaving their indelible marks on this ancient land located at the confluence of four geographic zones.
A Military History of Afghanistan is a survey of the geographic, social, and political foundations of wars as well as the social impacts of internal and external conflicts on the evolution of military organization, strategy and tactics, arms, and armed men in this multiethnic nation. The book encompasses an immense panorama of wars, conflicts, and battles spanning the full length of Afghanistans extraordinary history from ancient times to the twenty-first century.
The book examines the nature and conduct of military action by different armies, with varying arms and equipment at different stages of history, offering insights into the politics and statecraft of each age, which was often decided by military exigencies. Political history has until very recent times been a narrative of military strength, hegemony, and dynamism. Yet history has witnessed powerful armies handicapped by nonmilitary factors such as terrain and hostile populations as well as their own faulty strategies and flawed tactics, let alone the impact of unanticipated adversaries. Since much of Afghanistans history is the story of wars, battles, generals, and the common soldier, this work undoubtedly sheds much light on the tumultuous and dynamic history of the country as a whole.
No work has hitherto chronicled the vast and rich accounts of Afghanistans military history in the comprehensive manner achieved in this work by Jalali. A series of books and professional studies focusing on separate wars and battles have been published in the past, particularly on Anglo-Afghan wars in the nineteenth century by British authors. Recently all published historical studies on Afghanistan either lack professional military focus or look at single wars and conflicts.
This volume provides general readers of military history, as well as scholars and professionals, with the definitive history of warfare in Afghanistan. While its principal focus is the era of British conquest, the Soviet invasion, the civil war and rise of the Taliban, and the subsequent US-led invasion, the book, broad in scope and based on authoritative primary sources, covers ancient conquerors and modern invasions with equal rigor. With its all-encompassing illustrative details and analytical features, in my judgment this book deserves to become a locus classicus in the annals of Afghanistans military history, and indeed of military history more generally.
David Richards
General the Lord Richards of Herstmonceux GCB, CBE, DSO
Preface and Acknowledgments
This work, A Military History of Afghanistan: From the Great Game to the Global War on Terror , is the culmination of my research and work on the military history of Afghanistan that began over four decades ago. In 1967 I completed a preliminary study in two volumes on the military history of Afghanistan, which was published in Kabul in the Dari-Persian language. It was an introductory work and did not cover much of the modern history of the country. My further research over the years enabled me to use a large number of primary sources in writing one definitive work on the military history of Afghanistan. This has been both a labor of love as well as what I perceive and hope will be a critical work at a time when the country has been the focal point for the international war on terrorism and accompanying military efforts. From the time that I first began exploring this subject, much change has taken place in the political landscape of the country. Decades of war have witnessed the introduction of new military tactics, innovations, and strategies. These new developments necessitate a thorough and all-inclusive analysis of the transformation of military history from ancient times to the present.
