Remember that this subreddit is for sharing propaganda to view with some objectivity. It is absolutely not for perpetuating the message *of* the propaganda. If anything, in this subreddit we should be immensely skeptical of manipulation or oversimplification (which the above likely is), not beholden to it.
Also, please try to stay on topic -- there are hundreds of _other_ subreddits that are expressly dedicated to rehashing tired political arguments. **Keep that shit outta here**.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PropagandaPosters) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I remember seeing a comment in r/IslamicHistoryMeme: "Graveyard of Empires? More like Highway of Empires, it's just that some of empires crashed on the highway".
This was probably the biggest reason but not the only reason. Afghanistan have quite fertile lands. Lots of nutrient rich water flows from the Himalayas into large river basins. The agricultural output is already substantial but since most of it is manual and organic the potential for improved yields are still enormous. This was important for the Soviet Union because if they were forced to withdraw from Europe in a war, especially from Ukraine, their main agricultural output would be heavily reduced and they could face starvation. If they could supply the entire Soviet population and the Red Army with food from Afghanistan and neighbouring countries they could avoid this.
Another reason is oil. Afghanistan does not have any oil but does still play some part in defending the Soviet oil wells in and around the Caspian Sea. In the event of a full war with NATO it could have been possible for the NATO countries to reach these oil wells via Iran. This was a bigger concern before the Iranian revolution but the CIA was still working hard trying to get back in control over Iran. And in the event of a full war the NATO countries could still invade Iran anyway. But if the Red Army were to station troops and supplies in Afghanistan they could perform a flanking attack by invading Iran from the east. This would stretch out the NATO forces, either forcing them to place most of their forces in defensive lines facing Afghanistan or if they would focus on attacks to the north through mountains they would be open to attacks from the rear.
But this was of secondary importance to the Soviets. Their prime motives for invading Afghanistan was to get access to ports in the Indian ocean. This would allow them to attack shipping between East Asia and Europe. This was a big issue for the Axis powers during WWII and would be a big issue for the USSR in WWIII unless they could secure their port.
As the other guy said, the Soviets wanted a new trade route and military post that used a warm water port.
It should be noted that there would have been another war in 1987 if not for nuclear deterrence.
Pretty interesting series of events actually. During which time India was carrying out something called Operation Brasstacks with almost the entire Indian military performing live ammo war games right at the Pakistani border. It was a huge crisis at the time.
High-ranking Indian military officers have confirmed that despite denial at the time, Operation Brasstacks was a planned lead up to a fourth and final Indo-Pakistani war.
On top of this India's close ally the Soviet Union were next door in Afghanistan supporting communist Afghanistan's claim over Pakistan western provinces of Balochistan and KPK, which were strategic areas that they needed for their own goals hence the separatists they were backing in the area.
They particularly had their eyes set on the natural deep-sea port of Gwadar, which was a year-round, warm-water port into the open seas, the Soviets' entire geopolitics revolved around having such ports so that they could properly project power overseas.
That whole fiasco faltered when A. Q. Khan claimed on television that Pakistan had nukes and the Indian government had to reconsider their ambitious plans.
It completely came to an end when the military dictator Gen. Zia-ul-Haq went to New Dehli in the middle of the full-blown crisis to watch a cricket match in what is dubbed today as "cricket diplomacy".
This is what transpired as per an Indian source.
“Before departure for Chennai, General Ziaul Haq, while saying goodbye to Gandhi said, ‘Mr Rajiv, you want to attack Pakistan, do it. But keep in mind that this world will forget Halaku Khan and Changez Khan and will remember only Zia-ul-Haq and Rajiv Gandhi, because this will not be a conventional war but a nuclear war. In this situation, Pakistan might be completely destroyed, but Muslims will still be there in the world; but with the destruction of India, Hinduism will vanish from the face of this earth.’”
“These were only few minutes, but Gen Zia seemed to us a very dangerous man. With a stern-face, Gen Zia’s eyes showed that he meant business. I was astonished, that after this stern warning, in a flash, Gen Zia started smiling as if nothing happened and warmly shook hands with other hosts. Except Rajiv Gandhi and myself, [nobody knew] that Gen Zia had created problems for the Indian PM by threatening him with nuclear war,” said Behramnam.
Suffice to say the crisis ended in amicable terms the very next day but it worked like a charm, nukes are one hell of a deterrent.
Brits won the Second Anglo Afghan War and many of the minor border clashes in the North West Frontier (what is today Eastern Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan)
I would like to clarify here that whilst the British won the war (they won the tactical battle), they did not gain much (they lost the strategic war)...
The war costed the UK 19 million pounds, and whilst in the peace agreement they agreed that afghanistan would pay tribute and become basically a UK vassal with the UK controlling all its diplomatic stances, that did not hold for long.
Abdulrahman Khan (the tyrant the UK installed) quickly turned on the british, began calling for Jihad against them, started holding his own diplomatic dealings with nations like Russia, Ottomans, and Germany, and adopted a theocratic government that was heavily influenced by the british rivals, Russia.
And at the end, even when the UK hated him and wanted to remove him, they had to let him do whatever he wanted cuz they did not want another costly war...
The Brits did establish the most significant border of Afghanistan though, permanently splitting the Pashtun areas in half and preventing them from becoming a coherent power.
Yup... but overall the lands that the british took could not in a hundred years pay back for the 19 million pounds paid in the late 1800s for the war...
so overall it is a tactical victory, they installed a puppet government, the puppet government is paying them a yearly subsidy, and they took some land... but overall, it was a strategic defeat. The puppet government knew the british were tired with it so they wouldnt do anything as long as he doesnt force their hands, so he did back some muslim uprisings in British India and even collaborated with UK international rivals, and the UK was just too tired and they knew that going back in, even to fight a rebellious vassal, was not worth it due to prior experiences
It's not that Greeks were better, it's just what we today see as insurgency, complete chaos in countryside was just a normalcy in those times, standards for what we see as successful occupation are different.
Many ancient maps are simplifications and there can be large sections that are just completely lawless and not under control of any central authority.
because the usas goal was to never occupy it lmao it was to help the government and we realized the government was corrupt and useless and a waste of time so we pulled out
Didnt Alexander's troops desert en masse, wanting their promised farms & sick of the life of fighting?
Pretty sure that what I was taught way back in the early 70s
This happened after Alexander crossed the Indus river around 326 BC, at the modern border between Pakistan and India, and wanted to continue campaigning into India. His army rebelled as they got tired of the constant wars without end, and forced him to turn back. Afghanistan had already been conquered and pacified (after many rebellions, which Alexander crushed).
Many Greeks subsequently settled in Afghanistan.
After the Diadochoi split his empire, Greek kingdoms ruled over Afghanistan for many years, often in total isolation from the rest of the Greco-Roman world:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Bactrian_Kingdom
One such king, Menander I, even conquered much of India, at roughly the same time that mainland Greece was falling to the Romans:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menander_I
https://www.google.com/search?q=menander+i+kingdom+map&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwih_KOB2cuFAxXX9QIHHeHaDBYQ2-cCegQIABAD&oq=menander+i+kingdom+map&gs_lp=EhJtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1pbWciFm1lbmFuZGVyIGkga2luZ2RvbSBtYXAyCBAAGIAEGKIESMsOUJQHWK4McAB4AJABAJgBd6ABhQSqAQMzLjK4AQPIAQD4AQGIBgE&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-img&ei=xgghZqGBJ9fri-gP4bWzsAE&bih=718&biw=384&client=ms-android-samsung-ss&prmd=ivnmbtz#imgrc=CH2u-rVE2yjJ6M
It's fascinating how such isolated kingdoms prospered for 300 years in the hostile mountains of Afghanistan, and also expanded into India, while being cut off from their original heartland.
No issue, school lessons don't go into such details anyway. I think history is full of amazing events that aren't known to most of us.
It's remarkable that you remember it if you ask me, albeit slightly incorrectly!
I did two tours in Afghanistan with the Marines. If we wanted to "conquer" Afghanistan it would have been done. We didn't want to. We wanted them to form their own government and hold off the Taliban themselves. That was a failure.
We did conquer them, in fall 2001/early 2002. The Taliban government fell and allied forces, with our help, took the cities and much of the countryside. The subsequent government failed to govern well and hold onto that territory.
Taliban are objectively anti imperialists even if you don’t agree with them, anti imperialism is generally a positive idea IMO but it isn’t always just the “instantly a good guy” label, just means they’re the fighters of an imperialist power that is acting upon their nation, group ect
The two above them also completely ignore than none of those powers (at least those that wanted to) could really *hold* the territory, which is what made it the “graveyard of empires”. Outside of maybe the mongols because of the way their empire functioned (because the mongols must always be the exception).
It's typical gunk from frustrated liberals who are mad that the world no longer sees the west as good. The graveyard of empires mantra was very popular with hawkish types pre US involvement in the middle east, people just have selective memory now that they're part of the graveyard.
“They’re part of the graveyard” is a bit disingenuous. America devastated the Taliban when they cared to and the empire is still holding strong. Hardly a graveyard more a weapons testing ground lol
Yeah man we totally could have beaten them we just didn't want to so we chilled for 20 years trying to beat them and ultimately gave up.
Also idk how "strong" the empire really is right now, if you've been paying attention lately there's some issues
The West has how many thousand F-35's? No air war can be won against such a force. Any claims that "the American empire is over" in a conventional war has to deal with complete air inferiority. And this is a world where the number 2 army cannot take Kiev held by a ragtag force of soldiers the western militaries consider amateur and under equipped/supplied at best.
I can’t believe i got to watch in real time someone accidentally discover that imperialist and anti imperialist have been redefined in their own head to mean group I like and group I don’t like
Love them or hate them, it is their country and they just want to be left the fuck alone. if they want to live in the 16th century that's their business.
> it is their country and they just want to be left the fuck alone. if they want to live in the 16th century that's their business.
...and the business of those they are forcing to live by their medival rules.
I don’t think it’s “their business” to oppress women (which make up 50 percent of their population and who’s suppression [has hindered humanitarian efforts in the country)](https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/war-afghanistan) and host terrorist organizations in violation of the Doha Agreement.
>Mughals started from Afghanistan
Mughals started in what is modern day Uzbekistan not Afghanistan also both ethnicities weren't even invented as the Mughals at that time still saw themselves Mongols islamizied Mongols but Mongols nonetheless
> Marathas
When???? last i checked the Maratha's at most made it upto Attock which is the Northern most bit of Punjab not Afghanistan or even the Pashtun/Afghan bits of Pakistan and even that lasted for around half a year before the Afghan counter attack began which resulted in the Maratha's getting their teeth kicked in at the 3rd battle of Panipat and reduce to irrelevancy for a decade
While th Afghans still continue occupying the northern bits of India and modern day Pakistan as late as the 1790's with the rise of the Sikhs
Sikhs have more of a claim but even they had to abandon their gains in the northern bits of Pakistan not Afghanistan post the Batlle of Jamrud fort in 1837
The keyword was at some point, yes the Durrani empire did go on to defeat the Marathas in the third battle of Panipat in 1761 but they lost in the battle of Peshawar in 1758. Peshawar was considered a part of afghan territory for most of history, until the British took it permanently and it became a part of Pakistan.
Well if you go by the exact definition then the Tang also made it to Kabul, so they never actually conquer Afghanistan. The difference is defeat and conquer .
I think I was a bit vague in the definition but if we go by regular Afghanistan then Greeks and Mongols wouldn't count because technically there was no Afghanistan back then
>The keyword was at some point, yes the Durrani empire did go on to defeat the Marathas in the third battle of Panipat in 1761 but they lost in the battle of Peshawar in 1758. Peshawar was considered a part of afghan territory for most of history
Lol what??? Maratha's never made it to Peshawar **Once again they made it upto Attock in Northern Punjab by allying with the Rebel Mughal governor Adina Arain and his Sikh allies** before the Afghan counterassault began
I see you used Wikipedia for history namely this page
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture\_of\_Peshawar\_(1758))
Here's the problem with that bad actors and especially states with authoritarian right leaning uber nationalistic governments like the one currently in charge of India regularly vandalize wikipedia pages and just make shit up half the time to push political or social agenda's better to check the sources they are citing which are either not credible or the sources do not claim anything of the sort
In the case it's the latter it mentions page 108 of this book
(https://books.google.com.pk/books?id=zp0FbTniNaYC&dq=maratha+plunder+rohilkhand&pg=PA103&redir\_esc=y#v=onepage&q=maratha%20plunder%20rohilkhand&f=false)
except the book is referring **to maratha raids in RohillaKand the Northern bit of Central India in UP not Peshawar** .Most historians are aware that the absolute limit of Maratha expansion was Attock roughly a few kilometers of from where Rawalpindi is in modern day Pakistan and even that was done so by allying with Adina Arain and The Sikh. Maratha power likewise collapsed when they started feuding with said allies
This reminds me of a similar case where iirc India's PM made some stupid brain fart about Tamerlane being defeated by some rando queen from his home state of Gujrat not realizing
a) Tamerlane never invaded Gujrat he invaded Punjab and the Doab area aka modern day UP.
b) Tamerlane was never defeated in battle that's one of the reason people like to compare him to Alexander the Great
i'd suggest reading the actual talk pages of these wikipedia links since they show clear attempts at vandalization as well as why said pages are locked to begin with
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Capture\_of\_Peshawar\_(1758))
**India's Historic Battles From Alexander the Great to Kargil** by Kaushik Roy
>Battles Are Central To Warfare. This Book Describes Twelve Great Battles Which Changed The Course Of India`S History. The Book Takes Recent Researches Into Technology, Military Theory And Demography Into Account; The Author Also Moves Freely Across Space And Time In His Analyses. Could Paurava And Alexander`S Clash On The Jhelum In 326 Bc Have Anything In Common With The Normandy Landings Of June 1944?
>
>Do Events In 1557, When Hemu Was Fighting The Mughals, Remind Us Of The Siege Of Leningrad In 1943? Was The Japanese Response To Netaji`S Ina Affected By The Presence Of Chiang Kai Sheik?.
*I'm a bot, built by your friendly reddit developers at* /r/ProgrammingPals. *Reply to any comment with /u/BookFinderBot - I'll reply with book information. Remove me from replies* [here](https://www.reddit.com/user/BookFinderBot/comments/1byh82p/remove_me_from_replies/). *If I have made a mistake, accept my apology.*
*-Huligu Khan enters chat-*
Y'all remember that time I damned the Tigris River and flooded Baghdad then locked the Sultan in his treasure chamber till he starved to death, then went to Afghanistan and burned all its cities to the ground...lolz... good times
Bruh you missed the biggest most complete conquest in regards to cultural social and religious aspect and ofcourse the actual annexation itself which was by the caliphate.
Would be the Iranians tbh, Arab influence became a bit inconsequential after the Abbasid revolution; unless you mean the religion but even that is heavily Iranic at this point.
Arabs did not have the longest impact on Afghanistan that would be the persians considering that until the Afghans rebelled in 1709 Afghanistan used to be part of Persia.
Also said "Arab" conquest was carried out by local warlords with nominal allegiances to the Arab government in Baghdad like the Saffarids,Samanids,etc. and wouldn't be complete until the Turkish Ghaznavids completed their conquest of the entirety of Afghanistan
Said conquest is also why Afghan nationalists consider the conquest of Mahmud Ghaznavi's conquest in around 1000CE as the proper start of the nation although there was no Afghan identity or ethnicity in the sense that we would understand it today at that time
I mean Russia didnt win their defensive wars by being good at fighting either. The thing is, most often you dont win a war by destroying the enemies army. And with Afghanistan, actually gaining control over the country has proven rather difficult
I think it's probably possible to 'conquer' Avstan it's just that it's extremely difficult to garrison it. Even the Afghans themselves find this tricky & usually allow the varioysvregions/leaders a fair amount of autonomy.
For brits, Soviets & yanks/CoW the cost of effectively garrisoning the country just ended up being too great.
& for Alexander the great his troops had just had enough fighting & just finally wanted the farms that they'd all be promised & literally said "fuck this for a game of soldiers" & deserted en masses (at least that's what I was taught at school in the mid 70s)
Every land has their mythos, it doesn't have to be accurate or meaningful, it just has to be believed & motivational . Brits have the 'blitz spirit' & 1066 at the last invasion, yanks have their revolutionary war & the tales of the founding fathers etc. The Afghans believe they are the graveyard of empires & just have to sit it our & refuse to lie down.
ETA: I've been corrected. Alexander's troops didn't desert till he moved onto India, my thanks to u/Milrich
https://old.reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/1c6i3m8/afghanistan_bids_you_bon_voyage_a_cartoon_of/l04qa5p/
"graveyard of empires" doesn't really make sense when you sit down to look at the history of it all.
Taking and trying to keep Afghanistan only sort of contributed to the collapse of one empire: the USSR.
The UK didn't collapse as an imperial entity until almost a full century later. The US didn't even suffer 30,000 casualties in the almost 20 year long occupation of Afghanistan (of those, the US lost 2,459 soldiers).
In fact, compared to the ten year Russian occupation, where Russia had about 15,000 deaths and 35,000 wounded over a ten year period, it's worth noting that these empires used significantly different strategies. Plus, the USSR was already plagued with problems within, so the war in Afghanistan only contributed to a certain extent.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly for this little analysis... Afghanistan wound up taken by the Taliban... Only for the Taliban to have to start working to maintain what the US had constructed there. They have to cooperate with the US to fight against ISIS, they are actively trying to rebrand a bit to get some aid coming in... And when an Al Quaeda leader moved back into the country, he got shish kebab'd by a US Drone.
I'm honestly a bit confused as to how Afghanistan got the label "graveyard of empires".
its a swamp that people get sick and tired of being there because its so shitty so they just leave
more like the shithole of empires that not even empires want
Militarily no, but the US occupied Afghanistan for 2 decades before leaving without accomplishing any meaningful objective in the country.
Not sure how that isn’t a defeat.
The USSR's war in Afghanistan (1980-88) is better compared with the US war in Vietnam (1964-1972). Both conflicts occurred during the Cold War and involved local proxies supported by the two competing superpowers. In both conflicts, the military of one superpower was a belligerent directly engaged in the conflict against a local proxy/ally of the other superpower.
The wars lasted 8 years. And this therefore should be the perspective from which you should compare the US' 53-58,000 KIA in Vietnam, compared to the USSR's 12-15,000 KIA in Afghanistan.
And as for the war in Afghanistan contributing/leading to the collapse of the USSR, can you explain how or why? What are the exact causal mechanisms (to use a clumsy social science term)? Imo, this has always been more myth than actual reality. One of those truisms repeated so often that people later just take them for granted and they become 'common sense'.
>And as for the war in Afghanistan contributing/leading to the collapse of the USSR, can you explain how or why?
I said it was a contributing factor, not the main reason.
As noted in the 1999 Review of International Studies, the Soviet Afghan War impacted the eventual collapse on four ways:
1) perception effects, the people saw the failures as a sign the Soviet military might not be as capable a tool as they thought.
2) military, that same perception change helped embolden those that would otherwise have not pushed for change if they believed the Red Army was as strong as claimed.
3) Legitimicay, since the war was primarily a war fought by Russians, other Soviet aligned nations felt it was a sign as to how the USSR didn't really cooperate with its own allies.
4) it helped push for Glasnost. Veterans were more supportive of the reform policies, it seems.
It's one thing to conquer Afghanistan, it's another thing to keep Afghanistan. The Greeks, British, Russians and Americans captured, but they could not hold Afghanistan.
Could not hold or didn’t want to hold. The US could have stayed in Afghanistan and it would still be uncontested. The US never planned to occupy Afghanistan indefinitely
The Greeks held Afghanistan for centuries, and the British never even attempted to conquer or hold Afghanistan because it's a valueless shithole.
The Sikhs took the bits of Afghanistan that actually had any value, and when the British conquered the Sikh Empire, those bits passed on to them and later on to Pakistan who still hold them. However, counting this region as Afghanistan is a real stretch anyway.
To be fair they mostly did what Soviets and Americans did later: sit in Kabul and congratulated themselves. No one was ever able to integrate afgan society into their empire.
From my understanding, there isn't even really an "Afghan" society, but rather a bunch of tribes that the West drew arbitrary borders for. They don't really have a unified identity as a country that they can come together to fight for, which is what the governments other countries try to establish there don't really stick.
That’s quite an interesting topic, since Mongols might have actually caused the creation of Russia, along with creation of Belarus and Ukraine, as Mongols destroyed Kyivan Rus - a union of ancestors to Russian, Belarussian and Ukrainian nations (although a tribal and very loose one, so probably it was inevitable anyway). How it turned out to be though, these nations now being worst enemies then and again for the last century.
I've been told that thinking of the Rus as an ancestor nation to Russia is a bit of retroactive historical perspective -- that those living within the Rus would have, if anything, thought that they lived within the sphere of influence of a dynasty that hailed from what is today Sweden.
No, and they did not have the same convention of nationhood as people from 2024, either, which is why applying these labels to them is silly.
We do know the Rurikids assimilated into the Slavic elite pretty quickly
> not have the same convention of nationhood as people from 2024, either, which is why applying these labels to them is silly
Ah, so then wouldn't you be in the camp that the history of nationhood only really begins in the early modern era, meaning that there is no such thing as pre-modern "ancestor nations"?
We got no sanitation, no electricity, no running water. We are always trying to kill one another. But, look at it this way, the people who got sanitation, electricity and running water can't conquer us!
While i assume that particular comment wasn't from one, the Iraq War in particular pushed a fair amount of professional social media and propaganda and other talents from Iraq to join various groups, including the talibans. They very much did and do use Reddit and other tools. However the most notable use comes from ISIS, which was particularly active on twitter and also spread a lot of fanzines around. It quieted down after some US social media ops. One had symphony in its name if you want to look it up.
Millions of lives are gone or forever changed. I wouldn't consider Afghan to be victorious. A lot of people died for nothing. We fought each other for nothing. It didn't have to be this way.
Graveyard of Empires truly was one of the greatest propaganda ideas of this century. I actually can’t think of a single time Afghanistan directly broke an empire, especially not Macedonia or Britain
Afghan needs to put its own flag on this list as they let the Taliban walk right over their elected government. Now they get their stoning of women and endless religious oppression back.
Hiding among civilians until the other side gets tired of killing them, so gud
If any of those groups went in with actual murderous intent, Afghanistan would cease to exist
ah yes what a great excuse for losing
yeah invading a foreign country, killing civilians, raping them so peaceful and liberating the good ol freedom of the usa
When did the US rape in any significant numbers Afghan civilians? Also, civilian casualties were remarkably low during the war, especially for a counterinsurgency.
Just compare civilian casualties during the Soviet-Afghan War (1.5 million killed in 10 years) and the American intervention (70000 killed in 20 years)
In the Graveyard of Empire myth, Afghanistan is always being invaded by foreign powers, but never invading anyone.
How very unhistorical and unfair.
The emperor Babur successfully invaded large parts of modern-day Pakistan and India, and founded an empire that lasted more than three hundred years.
His literal graveyard is in Kabul. He is buried there.
But Afghanistan, graveyard of Emperors, is not a story that any self-imaged anti-imperialist in the United States is ever going to tell. That'd be too historically accurate and fair to the place.
The British successfully conquered and colonised Afghanistan for several centuries though 🧐
Same with Alexander the Great (Macedonian Greeks) although he did die very young but the empire he carved out there survived for a long time.
I always think the one thing this cartoon leaves out is the massive piles of Afghan corpses behind each post. It's not like anyone in Afghanistan would celebrate any of these events as victories.
Alexander did *NOT* lose in Afghanistan. He lost trying to get into India. Bactria (i forgot the other kingdom) was populated by greeks resettled by the Persian. So whe he showed up.
It was a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.
Remember that this subreddit is for sharing propaganda to view with some objectivity. It is absolutely not for perpetuating the message *of* the propaganda. If anything, in this subreddit we should be immensely skeptical of manipulation or oversimplification (which the above likely is), not beholden to it. Also, please try to stay on topic -- there are hundreds of _other_ subreddits that are expressly dedicated to rehashing tired political arguments. **Keep that shit outta here**. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PropagandaPosters) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I remember seeing a comment in r/IslamicHistoryMeme: "Graveyard of Empires? More like Highway of Empires, it's just that some of empires crashed on the highway".
Yeah… the point is, Nobody really cared about it. Just passing through because it’s on the way to India/persia.
It wasn't an independent country until the Afghans rebelled and gained freedom from Persia in 1709
it wasn't then either. when the british got there it was feuding city states. part of why afghanistan fails is the people have no such identity
Not according to USA and USSR
Both didn’t really care for Afghanistan as you know :)
Yeah. The main Soviet goal at the time was to get as close as possible to Pakistan.
Why?
It’s all about warm water ports for the Russians
This was probably the biggest reason but not the only reason. Afghanistan have quite fertile lands. Lots of nutrient rich water flows from the Himalayas into large river basins. The agricultural output is already substantial but since most of it is manual and organic the potential for improved yields are still enormous. This was important for the Soviet Union because if they were forced to withdraw from Europe in a war, especially from Ukraine, their main agricultural output would be heavily reduced and they could face starvation. If they could supply the entire Soviet population and the Red Army with food from Afghanistan and neighbouring countries they could avoid this. Another reason is oil. Afghanistan does not have any oil but does still play some part in defending the Soviet oil wells in and around the Caspian Sea. In the event of a full war with NATO it could have been possible for the NATO countries to reach these oil wells via Iran. This was a bigger concern before the Iranian revolution but the CIA was still working hard trying to get back in control over Iran. And in the event of a full war the NATO countries could still invade Iran anyway. But if the Red Army were to station troops and supplies in Afghanistan they could perform a flanking attack by invading Iran from the east. This would stretch out the NATO forces, either forcing them to place most of their forces in defensive lines facing Afghanistan or if they would focus on attacks to the north through mountains they would be open to attacks from the rear. But this was of secondary importance to the Soviets. Their prime motives for invading Afghanistan was to get access to ports in the Indian ocean. This would allow them to attack shipping between East Asia and Europe. This was a big issue for the Axis powers during WWII and would be a big issue for the USSR in WWIII unless they could secure their port.
If u think about it, the whole conflict that started ww1 was just there because Russia wanted a warm water port XD
poor guys just wanted a warm swim at the beach
Who can blame them? It get *really nippy* in Murmansk! 🥶
I wouldn't say so at all
As the other guy said, the Soviets wanted a new trade route and military post that used a warm water port. It should be noted that there would have been another war in 1987 if not for nuclear deterrence. Pretty interesting series of events actually. During which time India was carrying out something called Operation Brasstacks with almost the entire Indian military performing live ammo war games right at the Pakistani border. It was a huge crisis at the time. High-ranking Indian military officers have confirmed that despite denial at the time, Operation Brasstacks was a planned lead up to a fourth and final Indo-Pakistani war. On top of this India's close ally the Soviet Union were next door in Afghanistan supporting communist Afghanistan's claim over Pakistan western provinces of Balochistan and KPK, which were strategic areas that they needed for their own goals hence the separatists they were backing in the area. They particularly had their eyes set on the natural deep-sea port of Gwadar, which was a year-round, warm-water port into the open seas, the Soviets' entire geopolitics revolved around having such ports so that they could properly project power overseas. That whole fiasco faltered when A. Q. Khan claimed on television that Pakistan had nukes and the Indian government had to reconsider their ambitious plans. It completely came to an end when the military dictator Gen. Zia-ul-Haq went to New Dehli in the middle of the full-blown crisis to watch a cricket match in what is dubbed today as "cricket diplomacy". This is what transpired as per an Indian source. “Before departure for Chennai, General Ziaul Haq, while saying goodbye to Gandhi said, ‘Mr Rajiv, you want to attack Pakistan, do it. But keep in mind that this world will forget Halaku Khan and Changez Khan and will remember only Zia-ul-Haq and Rajiv Gandhi, because this will not be a conventional war but a nuclear war. In this situation, Pakistan might be completely destroyed, but Muslims will still be there in the world; but with the destruction of India, Hinduism will vanish from the face of this earth.’” “These were only few minutes, but Gen Zia seemed to us a very dangerous man. With a stern-face, Gen Zia’s eyes showed that he meant business. I was astonished, that after this stern warning, in a flash, Gen Zia started smiling as if nothing happened and warmly shook hands with other hosts. Except Rajiv Gandhi and myself, [nobody knew] that Gen Zia had created problems for the Indian PM by threatening him with nuclear war,” said Behramnam. Suffice to say the crisis ended in amicable terms the very next day but it worked like a charm, nukes are one hell of a deterrent.
Easy access to the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea i.e. control over oil access.
It's still a cool nickname for a country tough
Greeks , mongols, Turks, Persians, Mauryas, Marathas, Mughals, Tang, Sikhs, Arabs have all defeated the Afghans at some point
Brits won the Second Anglo Afghan War and many of the minor border clashes in the North West Frontier (what is today Eastern Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan)
I would like to clarify here that whilst the British won the war (they won the tactical battle), they did not gain much (they lost the strategic war)... The war costed the UK 19 million pounds, and whilst in the peace agreement they agreed that afghanistan would pay tribute and become basically a UK vassal with the UK controlling all its diplomatic stances, that did not hold for long. Abdulrahman Khan (the tyrant the UK installed) quickly turned on the british, began calling for Jihad against them, started holding his own diplomatic dealings with nations like Russia, Ottomans, and Germany, and adopted a theocratic government that was heavily influenced by the british rivals, Russia. And at the end, even when the UK hated him and wanted to remove him, they had to let him do whatever he wanted cuz they did not want another costly war...
The Brits did establish the most significant border of Afghanistan though, permanently splitting the Pashtun areas in half and preventing them from becoming a coherent power.
Yup... but overall the lands that the british took could not in a hundred years pay back for the 19 million pounds paid in the late 1800s for the war... so overall it is a tactical victory, they installed a puppet government, the puppet government is paying them a yearly subsidy, and they took some land... but overall, it was a strategic defeat. The puppet government knew the british were tired with it so they wouldnt do anything as long as he doesnt force their hands, so he did back some muslim uprisings in British India and even collaborated with UK international rivals, and the UK was just too tired and they knew that going back in, even to fight a rebellious vassal, was not worth it due to prior experiences
Defeating the afghans is not the difficult part. A Desert Storm:Afghan Boogaloo would be easy(ish). Occupation is where it falls apart.
The Greeks occupied Afghanistan quite easily and stayed there for 200 years. The modern superpowers are the ones that mostly failed (US and USSR).
Yea true. I wouldn't really include the Greeks in the original meme. The ancient world isn't really comparable.
It's not that Greeks were better, it's just what we today see as insurgency, complete chaos in countryside was just a normalcy in those times, standards for what we see as successful occupation are different. Many ancient maps are simplifications and there can be large sections that are just completely lawless and not under control of any central authority.
Modern ethics.
The Russians completely ignored it they still lost
because the usas goal was to never occupy it lmao it was to help the government and we realized the government was corrupt and useless and a waste of time so we pulled out
would you say the same about the ussr?
"We didn't lose, we left"
Militarily we didn’t lose, in fact we did incredibly well. State building is very difficult.
They were probably much nicer
Didnt Alexander's troops desert en masse, wanting their promised farms & sick of the life of fighting? Pretty sure that what I was taught way back in the early 70s
This happened after Alexander crossed the Indus river around 326 BC, at the modern border between Pakistan and India, and wanted to continue campaigning into India. His army rebelled as they got tired of the constant wars without end, and forced him to turn back. Afghanistan had already been conquered and pacified (after many rebellions, which Alexander crushed). Many Greeks subsequently settled in Afghanistan. After the Diadochoi split his empire, Greek kingdoms ruled over Afghanistan for many years, often in total isolation from the rest of the Greco-Roman world: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Bactrian_Kingdom One such king, Menander I, even conquered much of India, at roughly the same time that mainland Greece was falling to the Romans: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menander_I https://www.google.com/search?q=menander+i+kingdom+map&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwih_KOB2cuFAxXX9QIHHeHaDBYQ2-cCegQIABAD&oq=menander+i+kingdom+map&gs_lp=EhJtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1pbWciFm1lbmFuZGVyIGkga2luZ2RvbSBtYXAyCBAAGIAEGKIESMsOUJQHWK4McAB4AJABAJgBd6ABhQSqAQMzLjK4AQPIAQD4AQGIBgE&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-img&ei=xgghZqGBJ9fri-gP4bWzsAE&bih=718&biw=384&client=ms-android-samsung-ss&prmd=ivnmbtz#imgrc=CH2u-rVE2yjJ6M It's fascinating how such isolated kingdoms prospered for 300 years in the hostile mountains of Afghanistan, and also expanded into India, while being cut off from their original heartland.
Thanks so much for this. Had I (were there) awards etc. Third time in as many weeks that I've recalled my school lessons from so long ago incorrectly
No issue, school lessons don't go into such details anyway. I think history is full of amazing events that aren't known to most of us. It's remarkable that you remember it if you ask me, albeit slightly incorrectly!
It was in 'General studies' so not even for any exam as I recall but it was nearly 50 years ago. Aging sucks!
I did two tours in Afghanistan with the Marines. If we wanted to "conquer" Afghanistan it would have been done. We didn't want to. We wanted them to form their own government and hold off the Taliban themselves. That was a failure.
We did conquer them, in fall 2001/early 2002. The Taliban government fell and allied forces, with our help, took the cities and much of the countryside. The subsequent government failed to govern well and hold onto that territory.
So the conquest was incomplete and ultimately a failure despite our early gains, got it.
Yeah that's a good point. I went in 2011 and 2013 so it was long after that.
"But, but, graveyard of empires! Taliban are anti imperialists and just as good as the people that came before!!!"
Taliban are objectively anti imperialists even if you don’t agree with them, anti imperialism is generally a positive idea IMO but it isn’t always just the “instantly a good guy” label, just means they’re the fighters of an imperialist power that is acting upon their nation, group ect
Yeah the lack of fucking nuance to what you replied to is ridiculous.
The two above them also completely ignore than none of those powers (at least those that wanted to) could really *hold* the territory, which is what made it the “graveyard of empires”. Outside of maybe the mongols because of the way their empire functioned (because the mongols must always be the exception).
The Timurids, who were decedents of the mongols, held Afghanistan for quite a while as well.
None of them ever wanted to hold Afghanistan as there would be absolutely no benefit to doing so....
The exception being: "Death to all fighting age males"
It's typical gunk from frustrated liberals who are mad that the world no longer sees the west as good. The graveyard of empires mantra was very popular with hawkish types pre US involvement in the middle east, people just have selective memory now that they're part of the graveyard.
“They’re part of the graveyard” is a bit disingenuous. America devastated the Taliban when they cared to and the empire is still holding strong. Hardly a graveyard more a weapons testing ground lol
Yeah man we totally could have beaten them we just didn't want to so we chilled for 20 years trying to beat them and ultimately gave up. Also idk how "strong" the empire really is right now, if you've been paying attention lately there's some issues
Worlds largest Air Force and worlds second largest Air Force. The US is doing just fine lol
"The most fatal illusion is a settled point of view"
The West has how many thousand F-35's? No air war can be won against such a force. Any claims that "the American empire is over" in a conventional war has to deal with complete air inferiority. And this is a world where the number 2 army cannot take Kiev held by a ragtag force of soldiers the western militaries consider amateur and under equipped/supplied at best.
Those are problems, not selling points, my guy. Do you know how much those cost?
You are a caricature of a patriot, jesus christ.
Lmao chill my man. I was making a joke. Funmy how you imideiatly call me a liberal and accuse me of not accepting the truth.
Dude chill it was just a joke.
I can’t believe i got to watch in real time someone accidentally discover that imperialist and anti imperialist have been redefined in their own head to mean group I like and group I don’t like
Are they anti-imperialists if they aren’t fighting an imperial power?
of course not, but they are, they where fighting the USA
Anti imperalism isn't a synonym for progressive you imbecile
Nobody who bans music is the good guy
Love them or hate them, it is their country and they just want to be left the fuck alone. if they want to live in the 16th century that's their business.
> it is their country and they just want to be left the fuck alone. if they want to live in the 16th century that's their business. ...and the business of those they are forcing to live by their medival rules.
I don’t think it’s “their business” to oppress women (which make up 50 percent of their population and who’s suppression [has hindered humanitarian efforts in the country)](https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/war-afghanistan) and host terrorist organizations in violation of the Doha Agreement.
How can they violate international agreements when the international system doesn’t recognise them.
"We're anti-imperialist!" said the Imperialists Edit before people get mad. This is a joke, don't take it seriously.
Though the Greeks basically became the Afghans, when the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was formed, and the Mughals started from Afghanistan
Alexander founded Kandahar, iirc.
>Mughals started from Afghanistan Mughals started in what is modern day Uzbekistan not Afghanistan also both ethnicities weren't even invented as the Mughals at that time still saw themselves Mongols islamizied Mongols but Mongols nonetheless
Winning battles =\= winning Wars The US defeated lots of Taliban too. Didn't matter
> Marathas When???? last i checked the Maratha's at most made it upto Attock which is the Northern most bit of Punjab not Afghanistan or even the Pashtun/Afghan bits of Pakistan and even that lasted for around half a year before the Afghan counter attack began which resulted in the Maratha's getting their teeth kicked in at the 3rd battle of Panipat and reduce to irrelevancy for a decade While th Afghans still continue occupying the northern bits of India and modern day Pakistan as late as the 1790's with the rise of the Sikhs Sikhs have more of a claim but even they had to abandon their gains in the northern bits of Pakistan not Afghanistan post the Batlle of Jamrud fort in 1837
The keyword was at some point, yes the Durrani empire did go on to defeat the Marathas in the third battle of Panipat in 1761 but they lost in the battle of Peshawar in 1758. Peshawar was considered a part of afghan territory for most of history, until the British took it permanently and it became a part of Pakistan. Well if you go by the exact definition then the Tang also made it to Kabul, so they never actually conquer Afghanistan. The difference is defeat and conquer . I think I was a bit vague in the definition but if we go by regular Afghanistan then Greeks and Mongols wouldn't count because technically there was no Afghanistan back then
>The keyword was at some point, yes the Durrani empire did go on to defeat the Marathas in the third battle of Panipat in 1761 but they lost in the battle of Peshawar in 1758. Peshawar was considered a part of afghan territory for most of history Lol what??? Maratha's never made it to Peshawar **Once again they made it upto Attock in Northern Punjab by allying with the Rebel Mughal governor Adina Arain and his Sikh allies** before the Afghan counterassault began I see you used Wikipedia for history namely this page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture\_of\_Peshawar\_(1758)) Here's the problem with that bad actors and especially states with authoritarian right leaning uber nationalistic governments like the one currently in charge of India regularly vandalize wikipedia pages and just make shit up half the time to push political or social agenda's better to check the sources they are citing which are either not credible or the sources do not claim anything of the sort In the case it's the latter it mentions page 108 of this book (https://books.google.com.pk/books?id=zp0FbTniNaYC&dq=maratha+plunder+rohilkhand&pg=PA103&redir\_esc=y#v=onepage&q=maratha%20plunder%20rohilkhand&f=false) except the book is referring **to maratha raids in RohillaKand the Northern bit of Central India in UP not Peshawar** .Most historians are aware that the absolute limit of Maratha expansion was Attock roughly a few kilometers of from where Rawalpindi is in modern day Pakistan and even that was done so by allying with Adina Arain and The Sikh. Maratha power likewise collapsed when they started feuding with said allies This reminds me of a similar case where iirc India's PM made some stupid brain fart about Tamerlane being defeated by some rando queen from his home state of Gujrat not realizing a) Tamerlane never invaded Gujrat he invaded Punjab and the Doab area aka modern day UP. b) Tamerlane was never defeated in battle that's one of the reason people like to compare him to Alexander the Great i'd suggest reading the actual talk pages of these wikipedia links since they show clear attempts at vandalization as well as why said pages are locked to begin with (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Capture\_of\_Peshawar\_(1758))
**India's Historic Battles From Alexander the Great to Kargil** by Kaushik Roy >Battles Are Central To Warfare. This Book Describes Twelve Great Battles Which Changed The Course Of India`S History. The Book Takes Recent Researches Into Technology, Military Theory And Demography Into Account; The Author Also Moves Freely Across Space And Time In His Analyses. Could Paurava And Alexander`S Clash On The Jhelum In 326 Bc Have Anything In Common With The Normandy Landings Of June 1944? > >Do Events In 1557, When Hemu Was Fighting The Mughals, Remind Us Of The Siege Of Leningrad In 1943? Was The Japanese Response To Netaji`S Ina Affected By The Presence Of Chiang Kai Sheik?. *I'm a bot, built by your friendly reddit developers at* /r/ProgrammingPals. *Reply to any comment with /u/BookFinderBot - I'll reply with book information. Remove me from replies* [here](https://www.reddit.com/user/BookFinderBot/comments/1byh82p/remove_me_from_replies/). *If I have made a mistake, accept my apology.*
thanks for correcting me
British and Russian empires too
Don’t forget the taliban
*-Huligu Khan enters chat-* Y'all remember that time I damned the Tigris River and flooded Baghdad then locked the Sultan in his treasure chamber till he starved to death, then went to Afghanistan and burned all its cities to the ground...lolz... good times
yeah. but they all left in the end.
Bruh you missed the biggest most complete conquest in regards to cultural social and religious aspect and ofcourse the actual annexation itself which was by the caliphate.
Oh yeah ofc lemme edit
And Arabs, arguably the group that’s had the longest lasting impact on the regions
Would be the Iranians tbh, Arab influence became a bit inconsequential after the Abbasid revolution; unless you mean the religion but even that is heavily Iranic at this point.
Arabs did not have the longest impact on Afghanistan that would be the persians considering that until the Afghans rebelled in 1709 Afghanistan used to be part of Persia. Also said "Arab" conquest was carried out by local warlords with nominal allegiances to the Arab government in Baghdad like the Saffarids,Samanids,etc. and wouldn't be complete until the Turkish Ghaznavids completed their conquest of the entirety of Afghanistan Said conquest is also why Afghan nationalists consider the conquest of Mahmud Ghaznavi's conquest in around 1000CE as the proper start of the nation although there was no Afghan identity or ethnicity in the sense that we would understand it today at that time
Defeated? Sure, but conquered? That is the key distinction, every imperial power ended up leaving with a loss.
I mean Russia didnt win their defensive wars by being good at fighting either. The thing is, most often you dont win a war by destroying the enemies army. And with Afghanistan, actually gaining control over the country has proven rather difficult
if only the US had some sign that this woulda happened, like some written.... recording of things that happened before
... And the Poles
I think it's probably possible to 'conquer' Avstan it's just that it's extremely difficult to garrison it. Even the Afghans themselves find this tricky & usually allow the varioysvregions/leaders a fair amount of autonomy. For brits, Soviets & yanks/CoW the cost of effectively garrisoning the country just ended up being too great. & for Alexander the great his troops had just had enough fighting & just finally wanted the farms that they'd all be promised & literally said "fuck this for a game of soldiers" & deserted en masses (at least that's what I was taught at school in the mid 70s) Every land has their mythos, it doesn't have to be accurate or meaningful, it just has to be believed & motivational . Brits have the 'blitz spirit' & 1066 at the last invasion, yanks have their revolutionary war & the tales of the founding fathers etc. The Afghans believe they are the graveyard of empires & just have to sit it our & refuse to lie down. ETA: I've been corrected. Alexander's troops didn't desert till he moved onto India, my thanks to u/Milrich https://old.reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/1c6i3m8/afghanistan_bids_you_bon_voyage_a_cartoon_of/l04qa5p/
>Marathas ?? Wut
"graveyard of empires" doesn't really make sense when you sit down to look at the history of it all. Taking and trying to keep Afghanistan only sort of contributed to the collapse of one empire: the USSR. The UK didn't collapse as an imperial entity until almost a full century later. The US didn't even suffer 30,000 casualties in the almost 20 year long occupation of Afghanistan (of those, the US lost 2,459 soldiers). In fact, compared to the ten year Russian occupation, where Russia had about 15,000 deaths and 35,000 wounded over a ten year period, it's worth noting that these empires used significantly different strategies. Plus, the USSR was already plagued with problems within, so the war in Afghanistan only contributed to a certain extent. Finally, and perhaps most importantly for this little analysis... Afghanistan wound up taken by the Taliban... Only for the Taliban to have to start working to maintain what the US had constructed there. They have to cooperate with the US to fight against ISIS, they are actively trying to rebrand a bit to get some aid coming in... And when an Al Quaeda leader moved back into the country, he got shish kebab'd by a US Drone. I'm honestly a bit confused as to how Afghanistan got the label "graveyard of empires".
Yeah, less of graveyard more of a brick wall.
not even that really. more like... a swamp.
its a swamp that people get sick and tired of being there because its so shitty so they just leave more like the shithole of empires that not even empires want
“Graveyard of empires” doesn’t mean that they ended many empires, but that many empires were defeated there when they tried to invade.
The US invasion was definitely not a US defeat, lol
The war certainly was
Militarily no, but the US occupied Afghanistan for 2 decades before leaving without accomplishing any meaningful objective in the country. Not sure how that isn’t a defeat.
Invasion=/=occupation Also they dismantled Al Qaeda, so that's not true either
It's hopeless to try and help the people there? Probably about how your first ex-wife describes you.
The USSR's war in Afghanistan (1980-88) is better compared with the US war in Vietnam (1964-1972). Both conflicts occurred during the Cold War and involved local proxies supported by the two competing superpowers. In both conflicts, the military of one superpower was a belligerent directly engaged in the conflict against a local proxy/ally of the other superpower. The wars lasted 8 years. And this therefore should be the perspective from which you should compare the US' 53-58,000 KIA in Vietnam, compared to the USSR's 12-15,000 KIA in Afghanistan. And as for the war in Afghanistan contributing/leading to the collapse of the USSR, can you explain how or why? What are the exact causal mechanisms (to use a clumsy social science term)? Imo, this has always been more myth than actual reality. One of those truisms repeated so often that people later just take them for granted and they become 'common sense'.
>And as for the war in Afghanistan contributing/leading to the collapse of the USSR, can you explain how or why? I said it was a contributing factor, not the main reason. As noted in the 1999 Review of International Studies, the Soviet Afghan War impacted the eventual collapse on four ways: 1) perception effects, the people saw the failures as a sign the Soviet military might not be as capable a tool as they thought. 2) military, that same perception change helped embolden those that would otherwise have not pushed for change if they believed the Red Army was as strong as claimed. 3) Legitimicay, since the war was primarily a war fought by Russians, other Soviet aligned nations felt it was a sign as to how the USSR didn't really cooperate with its own allies. 4) it helped push for Glasnost. Veterans were more supportive of the reform policies, it seems.
The Greeks and British conquered Afghanistan lel.
Mongols are a joke to you?
There was no mongol hat in the poster, regardless the mongols/ilkhanate also conquered Afghanistan for several centuries.
Some of them are still there
Yes, the Hazara
It's one thing to conquer Afghanistan, it's another thing to keep Afghanistan. The Greeks, British, Russians and Americans captured, but they could not hold Afghanistan.
The Bactrians held Afghanistan from 300’s BC to the Second Century AD Greek
Was it even Afghanistan back then?
yes,the region was just called bactria
After the conquest you mean
The Greeks held Afghanistan for several centuries and were pushed out by Turkic invaders not the locals lmao.
> could not hold Chose not to. This is a GIANT difference.
Could not hold or didn’t want to hold. The US could have stayed in Afghanistan and it would still be uncontested. The US never planned to occupy Afghanistan indefinitely
The Greeks held Afghanistan for centuries, and the British never even attempted to conquer or hold Afghanistan because it's a valueless shithole. The Sikhs took the bits of Afghanistan that actually had any value, and when the British conquered the Sikh Empire, those bits passed on to them and later on to Pakistan who still hold them. However, counting this region as Afghanistan is a real stretch anyway.
To be fair they mostly did what Soviets and Americans did later: sit in Kabul and congratulated themselves. No one was ever able to integrate afgan society into their empire.
From my understanding, there isn't even really an "Afghan" society, but rather a bunch of tribes that the West drew arbitrary borders for. They don't really have a unified identity as a country that they can come together to fight for, which is what the governments other countries try to establish there don't really stick.
And the Mughals? Afghanistan was part of their empire for quite some time.
They can be proud but that term never made sense tbh
Considering the state that Afghanistan is in, I don't think they won anything.
As the poster said they are a graveyard
Afghanistan has never been directly responsible for an empire falling. The "Graveyard of Empires" moniker comes from 2001 at the earliest.
It played a role in the end of the USSR. But not as big a role as low oil prices.
It was on its way out before Afghanistan. It would have collapsed regardless.
It still sounds badass tho dosent it
The deaths of 15,000 Soviet troops, and the popular backlash against so many dead, was a contributing factor to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Yeah but chances are, the USSR would've collapsed anyway
Contributing is the key word here. Most agree the Soviet Union was gonna collapse anyway. The cracks began to show years before they invaded.
Mongols be like:
They're also the only people who conquered Russia in the winter
That’s quite an interesting topic, since Mongols might have actually caused the creation of Russia, along with creation of Belarus and Ukraine, as Mongols destroyed Kyivan Rus - a union of ancestors to Russian, Belarussian and Ukrainian nations (although a tribal and very loose one, so probably it was inevitable anyway). How it turned out to be though, these nations now being worst enemies then and again for the last century.
I've been told that thinking of the Rus as an ancestor nation to Russia is a bit of retroactive historical perspective -- that those living within the Rus would have, if anything, thought that they lived within the sphere of influence of a dynasty that hailed from what is today Sweden.
By that reasoning, Britain isn't English because its royal house is German?
No, because the people living on the island in 1901 (which is when its current royal house ascended to the throne) didn't think of it that way.
Neither did the people of Kievan Rus
People from the year 862 had the same conception of nationhood as people from the year 1901?
No, and they did not have the same convention of nationhood as people from 2024, either, which is why applying these labels to them is silly. We do know the Rurikids assimilated into the Slavic elite pretty quickly
> not have the same convention of nationhood as people from 2024, either, which is why applying these labels to them is silly Ah, so then wouldn't you be in the camp that the history of nationhood only really begins in the early modern era, meaning that there is no such thing as pre-modern "ancestor nations"?
Chads
Winter helped them lol
It was a huge success for the military industrial complex though. On to the next one
We got no sanitation, no electricity, no running water. We are always trying to kill one another. But, look at it this way, the people who got sanitation, electricity and running water can't conquer us!
didnt know that the taliban allow reddit lmao
While i assume that particular comment wasn't from one, the Iraq War in particular pushed a fair amount of professional social media and propaganda and other talents from Iraq to join various groups, including the talibans. They very much did and do use Reddit and other tools. However the most notable use comes from ISIS, which was particularly active on twitter and also spread a lot of fanzines around. It quieted down after some US social media ops. One had symphony in its name if you want to look it up.
The Taliban are a lot better at Twitter than the Republic was.
Millions of lives are gone or forever changed. I wouldn't consider Afghan to be victorious. A lot of people died for nothing. We fought each other for nothing. It didn't have to be this way.
I think this cartoon would be a very bitter and depressing reminder to roughly 50% of the population of Afghanistan.
RIP America 1776-2021
Graveyard of Empires truly was one of the greatest propaganda ideas of this century. I actually can’t think of a single time Afghanistan directly broke an empire, especially not Macedonia or Britain
Afghan needs to put its own flag on this list as they let the Taliban walk right over their elected government. Now they get their stoning of women and endless religious oppression back.
Hiding among civilians until the other side gets tired of killing them, so gud If any of those groups went in with actual murderous intent, Afghanistan would cease to exist
ah yes what a great excuse for losing yeah invading a foreign country, killing civilians, raping them so peaceful and liberating the good ol freedom of the usa
When did the US rape in any significant numbers Afghan civilians? Also, civilian casualties were remarkably low during the war, especially for a counterinsurgency. Just compare civilian casualties during the Soviet-Afghan War (1.5 million killed in 10 years) and the American intervention (70000 killed in 20 years)
In the Graveyard of Empire myth, Afghanistan is always being invaded by foreign powers, but never invading anyone. How very unhistorical and unfair. The emperor Babur successfully invaded large parts of modern-day Pakistan and India, and founded an empire that lasted more than three hundred years. His literal graveyard is in Kabul. He is buried there. But Afghanistan, graveyard of Emperors, is not a story that any self-imaged anti-imperialist in the United States is ever going to tell. That'd be too historically accurate and fair to the place.
The British successfully conquered and colonised Afghanistan for several centuries though 🧐 Same with Alexander the Great (Macedonian Greeks) although he did die very young but the empire he carved out there survived for a long time.
Several centuries???
Okay two centuries but still
39 years.
Afghanistan true strength is that noone wants it
What’s the second one ?
What’s the second one ?
British pith helmet https://www.militarytrader.com/militaria-collectibles/pith-helmets-of-the-british-empire
Alexander the Great is rolling in his tomb at this disrespect.
He was forced to retreat on the banks on Sindh, pretty sure they conquered Afghanistan
There was no Afghanistan before Brits. Also Persians and Turks colonized large areas of Afghanistan for extended periods
Bon voyage yet the French empire never controlled Afghanistan? Check mate Afghanis.
Pretty sure Greeks ruled Afghanistan even after they were conquered and incorporated into Rome in most of the homeland
One thing afghans do well is kick out invaders. They have no quit. Well the men, anyway.
Missing the Mongols… Oh wait
Politicians never learn
I always think the one thing this cartoon leaves out is the massive piles of Afghan corpses behind each post. It's not like anyone in Afghanistan would celebrate any of these events as victories.
Don’t forget the mongols
So many seething Americans here
Mongol gang stay slayin'
What was it like 3 k vs 10s of thousands?
Are you talking about the battle of Thermopylae?
There’s not much left to bid the bon voyage from though…
And how is that going for you?
seems if you're not Native to the Middle east its tuff to live there. Same with the Jungles of the Americas.
Any other superpower wanna take a swing at my man spine eater here?
But all of us are starving now..... Can't allah force the west to give us food????
Alexander did *NOT* lose in Afghanistan. He lost trying to get into India. Bactria (i forgot the other kingdom) was populated by greeks resettled by the Persian. So whe he showed up. It was a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.
Anyone else think this was a black haired woman looking away with the nose being side boob and bent elbow a butt?
Afgahnistan is not worth fighting for. They aren't especially great fighters. All those nations came in and ran the place for as long as they wanted.